The Price of Love
by HP-KD
Summary: discontinued Living with Sirius is exactly what he thought it would be. He hadn't taken into consideration that Azkaban might have affected him more than anyone could have imagined. Includes alcohol abuse and child abuse.
1. chapter 1

The Price of Love 

As he peeled off his shirt, careful not to agitate the bruised ribs his godfather had inflicted on him, he couldn't help but pause as it reached his face to dab at his eyes. He had never expected his summer to turn out like it had. Everything had seemed so perfect at the beginning of summer! How had it sunk to this level?

Checking to make sure that the door was still locked, he sprawled himself out on his bed, wincing at his sore back. He was going to have to go down the stairs and clean up the mess that had been made the previous night. He would still have a couple of hours before the hangover induced sleep wore off. He examined the damage done to his chest. Nothing life threatening. Nothing life threatening had ever happened to him this summer. A whack to his ribs, or a kick to his side every now and then. It wasn't anything that would require a doctor. No bones had ever been broken. Nothing horrible. Nothing _serious_. 

He was lucky. He constantly told himself that. A lot of kids had it worse off then him. He knew all about how kids would be tortured and abused and raped by their parents. He was smacked around a little bit. It wasn't that big of a deal. If he told child services, chances were, they would laugh at the accusations that he got a punch every once in a while. Wasn't that supposedly normal for people to discipline children that misbehave? 

"Almost every night isn't normal." A persistent voice in the back of his head would whisper. "And you didn't do anything wrong. You don't deserve this."

He was very adept at shrugging that little voice out of his head. Even so, he couldn't stop the tight feeling he got in his throat. 

Even so, he wouldn't call child services. He wouldn't send an owl to Ron and Hermione. He wouldn't tell anybody. He couldn't. He didn't even have the courage to confront Sirius about it.

When he decided that he had spent enough time moping, he pulled on another shirt and went down the stairs to examine the damage. He treaded the stairs carefully. He could never be sure that there wasn't any broken glass on the stairs. If he got glass stuck in his foot, it would be difficult to explain a limp. He pulled on his shoes, which had been kicked across the room the previous night. He picked up the glass bottle that was strewn across the room and some of the other ones that had been broken. It was never safe to run the vacuum cleaner. It was extremely loud and he couldn't afford to be noisy. He got the trashcan and put the pieces of glass in it, careful to adjust some paper towels so that they covered the broken whisky bottles. 

He stopped in front of a broken window in the living room. His eyes met the glass that had shattered on the lawn. He knew that he would never get it fixed in time. He would have to claim that he was playing with a ball outside and accidentally threw it through the window or something. He would also have to pick up the glass on the lawn so that Sirius didn't get suspicious since he was claiming that he had been playing outside. 

He sprayed some air-freshener around the house to get rid of the smell of alcohol. Wizards had come up with a formula that didn't cover up the smells, but actually got rid of them. That way Sirius wouldn't wonder why the house smelled like flowers or something of the like. 

He worked furiously to mend a broken chair leg with super glue without making it look extremely noticeable. He would have to put that chair towards the back of the room and hope that it managed to hold everyone's weight. 

When the room looked presentable, he decided that he should go take a shower and then see if there was any remaining smell to the house.

After he entered the bathroom, he decided that a bath might be better. He needed a chance to relax. Undressed carefully to avoid harming himself further. He rested in the hot water, eager to relax his bruises and contusions. 

He knew Sirius didn't mean to do any of it. He couldn't. His godfather was really great, and he truly loved him. It was just… the alcohol made him crazy. Crazy enough to be violent. Even to Harry. He relished the times when Sirius was fine. When he decided not to drink. When he wasn't cruel and sadistic. 

As much as he tried to, he couldn't justify his godfather's behavior. Why did he have to get drunk? Why couldn't he just be the loving, caring father figure that he had expected to play quidditch with, and give good advice? But he couldn't really complain. At least he was loved. When he was at the Dursley, he was hated, and neglected. At least now he had a normal guardian most of the time. 

The truth was, Sirius didn't know what he was doing. As far and Harry knew, Sirius didn't even realize that Harry knew about the alcohol abuse. Every night when he got drunk and took his aggressions out on Harry, he never remembered any of it the following day.

Usually, he would lock himself in his room and would get drunk. He would then let himself out and find Harry. He tried locking the door, but Sirius would always unlock it magically. He was extremely lucky that Sirius didn't manage to set the house on fire with his wand. After he was found, Sirius would then beat him up. Mostly it wasn't too serious. A kick to the ribs, or punch to shoulder was the norm. It was the words that stung him the worst. 

He would blame him. In his drunken slur, he would accuse him of killing off his parents. Of all the things that Harry silently blamed himself for that Sirius would normally reassure him of his innocence in. 

The worst of it was that he didn't know what to believe. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking, but perhaps it was actually what he was inwardly thinking. What if Sirius really did think he was responsible for all of it? He didn't think he could deal with that. 

After assaulting him, Sirius would usually go back to his room to sleep off the intoxication. He never remembered any of it the following morning. 

He put his head in his arms, and rested on the side of the tub. He couldn't tell Sirius about any of it. It would crush him! He knew that Sirius really did care about him: almost over protectively. He would tell him not to wander too far from the house, and not to fly too high when he was playing Quidditch. Harry found it a bit ironic in a sadistic way. 

If Sirius found out that he was actually hitting Harry, he didn't know what his godfather might do. 

Not to mention, that he was kind of scared of what might happen to him if he told anyone. If someone found out, he might be put back with the Dursley's. He might be put in foster care, or adoption. What if Sirius was put in jail? He knew Sirius didn't mean to do any of it. That was why he stood up for Sirius. 

After letting the water out of the tub, Harry put on a new pair of jeans and a gray shirt. Sirius had even gotten him new clothes, and glasses. It just didn't seem conceivable that the Sirius who had taken him to London to spend hundreds of pounds worth of new stuff was actually that violent inside. 

Once, Sirius had slipped up, and told Harry that he had had a bad childhood. When Harry questioned him, he got really cagey. Harry was beginning to wonder if Sirius had a split personality. 

He left the bathroom, and surveyed the room for anything he might have missed. 

The room looked as equally messy as it had the previous night, spare the broken window. 

He loved his new home. He found not having to pick up after himself almost satisfying in a way. Sirius had a rule about having the house look a bit messy at all times. At the very least, it had to look lived in. So he left books and letters and shoes randomly around the house. It added a sort of homely feeling to the place. 

When he had nothing left to do, he decided to sit down and watch Saturday morning cartoons for a little while. When he heard stumbling coming from upstairs, he got up and started making breakfast for the two of them. 

Usually, Sirius was in a bit of a mood after a night of heavy drinking until his headache let up. Trying to improve his mood, he would make breakfast for the both of them. It would slightly work, though Sirius would more often then not pass on breakfast.

"Hey." Sirius said, and Harry almost couldn't tell that he had a hangover. There was a spell Sirius would use that helped him wake up and be pleasant. 

"Hey." Harry replied. "Bacon?" He offered, when he came to the table with a frying pan. 

"No. Thanks anyway." Sirius's attitude may have been okay, but to the careful eye, you could find a lot of signs that Sirius had been drunk. His eyes where bloodshot, and he looked like he was still really tired. "I'll have some water though, if you don't mind." 

"Yeah, sure." Harry replied. He set down the water and lay his own breakfast across the table, sitting in the seat that hadn't been just recently glued back together. Harry took one bite out of his eggs and looked up from them to see that Sirius was eyeing him.

"TV?" Sirius suggested. 

"Sure." He agreed, but then he realized that Sirius didn't know about the window. The stairs led down into the dinning room, and didn't give one the opportunity to go into the living room without first passing through the kitchen and another hallway. Harry had always found the floor plan a bit odd for the downstairs, but it suited him just fine. 

"Uh, wait." Harry didn't know if stalling would really do any good, but he thought it might be a bit less shocking if Sirius was first warned. 

Not that Sirius wasn't use to things like that. During his first week living with Sirius in their new house, 'Harry' had accidentally broken a coffee table, and made a dent in the wall. 

After the incident with the wall on his third day there, Harry was almost certain that he was going to be kicked out. He had suggested packing his things to Sirius who waved the event off and saying he had been clumsy as a teenager as well. 

"What?" Harry surveyed what kind of mood Sirius was in.  

"I… accidentally broke a window. I'm sorry." 

Sirius's face seemed to contort. He looked like he was trying to be understanding while suppressing frustration. He sighed overdramatically so that Harry could tell it was fake. "What am I going to do with you?" 

Harry knew his part. He bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I was playing outside… and it went through the window." 

"What did? What were you playing with?" Sirius looked a bit uninterested, and he got up to examine the damage. 

"Uh- " Harry hadn't though it through. "I was throwing a tennis ball against the side of the house. I wasn't throwing it anywhere near the window. I don't know. It just… went over there." He followed Sirius into the living room

"I didn't know you played tennis." Sirius commented. His knowledge of muggle activities extended pretty far, but things like expressions and symbolism kind of messed him up. 

"No, I was just throwing it. You don't necessarily have to be playing tennis if you're using a ball." Sirius just shrugged. 

"Maybe I should make the windows unbreakable." Sirius had tried to cast that spell on most of the items in the house, but most of them didn't work. 

"That might be smart." Harry suggested shrugging. What would happen to Sirius if he tried to put his fist through a window that wouldn't break? At least the last time he did it, he didn't cut his fist up really bad. 

Sirius fixed the window up and cast the spell on it. He turned to Harry who looked sheepishly back, expecting to be reprimanded. He noticed that since the harsh treatment had begun, he always acted a bit… withdrawn, like he expected to be hit for misbehavior. If he didn't hear about it now… he would the next time Sirius got drunk. 

"So, what do you want to do today?" Sirius asked him, not mentioning the window at all. 

Harry shrugged, as he finished his breakfast on the couch. He always shrugged. He never knew what to do. "Want to visit Remus?" He suggested. 

Remus lived less then a half-mile away. The rural area where they lived was about two miles outside of a small town. Sirius could often pop down to the market for groceries anytime. Harry and him could just walk – or floo – over to Lupin's anytime they wanted to. 

"Sure." 

Sirius stuck his head into the fire to make sure it was okay with Remus. "He says it's fine Harry." Sirius told him. 

Sirius had a motorcycle. He didn't use it much – well, he didn't go out much, so he didn't have many opportunities to use it – but he prized it more then… his hair. And that was saying something. Many times he would disappear and Harry wouldn't see him until he returned several hours later with extremely red hands. 

Harry was yet to touch it, actually. Harry, in return, hadn't let Sirius touch his broom; it was more just to spite him then because he was territorial. 

It was parked in their garage. Inside was also a gym, which Harry found intriguing. It was a mystery to him why they had such a huge garage – big enough for two vehicles – when they didn't even have a car. There was a heavy punching bag that Harry was sure would probably kill him if it fell on top of him, a speed bag, weights, a treadmill, and a bike. Sirius had a pattern. He would work out for fifteen minutes every morning, and half-an-hour every night. Harry was sure it was one of the only habitual things that Sirius ever maintained besides taking a shower every night. Harry was free to use the gym anytime he pleased, which he had been excited about for all of one day. It then became so tedious for him to work out that he did it once or twice a week. 

They passed by the garage on their way to Remus's and Harry wondered why they didn't just floo there. Sirius always had been one for exercise though. It took them about ten minutes to arrive there. 

Remus was great. This was the kind of guy who would have been an excellent father and husband. Not that he had a problem with Sirius being his guardian, but if it weren't for Remus's lycanthropy, Harry would have been shocked to see him without a family. 

It wasn't as though every time he came over he found himself sitting bored in a chair while Remus and Sirius talked and reminisced, because Remus made an effort to include him in whatever it was they were talking about. Not that Sirius didn't, but he was a lot more prone to accidentally ignoring him. 

That happened sometimes. Once, Sirius had almost left without him. 

He faced the facts. A single guy was more likely to win guardian of the year then Sirius was. He ignored that fact however, preferring to stay in ignorant bliss.

If anybody noticed Sirius's faults as a surrogate father, it was Remus. The first thing he could hear Remus say was "Sirius, where's Harry?" 

"He couldn't keep up too well. He's back there." Sirius shrugged. 

He could see Remus peek out of the door and shake his head. When he finally arrived – almost out of breath – Sirius was already sitting on the couch with his feet up on Remus's coffee table. He didn't realize it when he and Remus simultaneously shook their heads. 

Harry sat somewhat stiffly on the couch next to Sirius. Remus offered them both some tea, but Sirius – always the charmer – insisted on coffee. 

"No thank you sir." Remus smiled kindly at Harry.

"You can call me by my first name you know." Remus reminded him. He shrugged politely.   
  


"So Rem… How's life been treating you?" He began.

"Not too bad. You know the full moon's this week, so things have been… you know, a bit slow for me.

"Yeah, that's right. It is, isn't it?" Sirius took a sip of coffee. "You still using that old shed in your back yard?" 

"Yes."

"Oh." He took another. There was a silence. 

"So Remus. You still working on the book?" He asked. For money, Harry assumed, Remus was a very renowned author of dark creatures, though not under his own name. 

"Yeah, I'm still reading through it. I'm about ready to send it to the publishers." He replied. 

The day continued sluggishly, silences going from a minute to a half-an-hour of silence. They left at about dinnertime, and as they finished the meal, Harry sighed deeply like an old man. Another day, another night, another torture session. The hours of seven a.m. to seven p.m. were his favorite times of day. 

They watched TV for three hours before Sirius stated he was going to bed. Harry lay on the couch, agonizingly aware that he had but half-an-hour until Sirius would stagger down the stairs, drunk, and assault him. 

Like clockwork, he could hear the staggering and the overturning of furniture. He heard the footsteps on the stairs and ragged breathing… the stench of alcohol assaulted his nose. 

"Boy?" He didn't know why, but he found the best way to avoid Sirius's rage was just to stand up and take it. 

"What are you doing, you bastard? What the hell do you think you're doing? Going to kill somebody else, are you?" Sirius didn't sound all the drunk. His breath reeked of whiskey, but his voice sounded like he was just talking to Snape, instead of his Godson. He noted oddly how Sirius seemed to sound a bit like his uncle. His thoughts were cut off quickly as Sirius whacked him around the head. 

"What, do you want to break any more of my windows? You little asshole. Why don't you go to hell, were you sent your parents?"

He felt a blow to his ribs, and fell to the ground nursing his side. "What, aren't you going to fight back you little bitch? Don't you want to kill me too?" He curled his knees toward his chest as he felt a kick to his stomach. He withheld the tears. He had learned on his day that crying – whether it be tears or calls of pain – would just incite his motivation to continue. 

He squeezed his eyes shut in pain, letting no tears leak out. He felt more blows. Some to his back. He felt glass shattering over his arms and back, and cuts opening. Another shirt that would be too torn up to wear.  

He felt the blows ebb away for a couple of minutes. He surveyed the room. Sirius was nowhere in sight. He examined the damage that he would have to deal with in the morning. No worse then usual. He noticed that a centerpiece – a bowl of fruit – was overturned and broken. No big deal. Sirius had never liked that anyway. 

He climbed the stairs quietly and observed Sirius sprawled out unconscious on his bed. 

This had been one of his better nights. 


	2. Chapter 2

The Price of Love 

It wasn't until night fell the following night that Harry realized just how screwed his life was.

It was one of those oh-so sentimental moments that usually occur when you're sitting alone for long periods of time and you get the full perspective of your life.

It was so that Harry was assured that he was screwed. 

Sirius would be his guardian for the next three years of his life. If he wasn't a pathetic heap of broken limbs by then, surely Sirius would have figured out that that he seemed unusually battered. How long would the "It was a Quidditch injury" excuse hold out?

And plus, it would be a short time before Sirius decided to do something that couldn't be covered up by a shirt. It was all ready that he couldn't wear short sleeves or shorts. 

It would be a long time before his summer was over, and an even longer time before he was free of it forever. 

It was with that realization that he decided that something needed to be done. 

There had to be someone he could tell… wasn't there? Someone who wouldn't make it horribly awkward to face them everyday knowing they knew that he got beat up by his godfather on a regular basis. 

Pfffff! 

Yeah, those were excellent odds. 

It couldn't be the Weasleys, since, he admitted feeling awkward, they just weren't people that he felt comfortable confiding to. Well, maybe to Mrs. Weasley, but he knew that no one could keep a secret like that in their house. 

Hermione… he didn't even know her parents, and what could she herself do? 

Maybe an adult he felt comfortable talking to? The first person that came to mind was Sirius. That wouldn't work too well. What about Remus?

He felt comfortable talking to him for one, but also, Remus just seemed like the level-head person who could deal with these situations. 

If he were a muggle, he could probably make a good social worker.

He was lying in bed. His rib cage varied in many different colors, ranging from the various stages of healing bruises. Yellow, green, black, blue, purple. Then there were the cuts.

The shattered glass had done a number on his shoulder. Pulling shards of glass out of his flesh hadn't been a picnic, and the blood had been flowing for an awfully long time before they finally clotted over. 

Harry's room had hardwood floors, though most of the room was covered with carpeting. Under his bed had found a loose floorboard which had held some… rather interesting articles from the last occupant of his room.

"It's a pity those things expire." He had joked after exploring its contents. He also found a stack of, ahem, 'magazines' from the fifties. 

Preferring just to leave those at the bottom, he loaded the top up with gauze, cleaning fluid, and other medical supplies. He had found that he was running low on bandages and had to find some time to go out and buy more. 

The next day was a normal one. Harry had fallen into the dull routine pattern of summer. 

Breakfast was held, though Sirius ate nothing as always. His hair was standing on end and Harry was choking from concealed laughter. 

"I'm going to be out for a while. Is that all right?" Sirius asked him staring down at his untouched plate of food. 

Why did people ask questions they already knew the answer to, he wondered. It wasn't like he could stop him. 

"Yeah, all right." He replied.

"You can go outside, or into town, or wherever you want to go while I out, okay?" 

He waited fifteen minutes until after Sirius left before he left walking towards Remus's little one-story house. 

He paused outside of the door. His head got dizzy with all of the thoughts that plagued him. 

Was it right to just come over without asking him first? Would he really be able to go through with it? Was Remus going to believe him? Would he tell Sirius? Would he think that he was just making mountains of molehills? Maybe it _was_ actually natural for Sirius to be doing this. 

He stood there thinking about it for almost five minutes; his hand stretched out in midair to knock. 

"Screw it." He thought, and he knocked. 

The door open a few minutes later to Remus's face. "Oh, hey Harry." He greeted politely. He looked around. "Where's Sirius?" He asked looking around. 

He finally found his voice. "He's- he's not here." He said stupidly. "I mean… it's just me." He took a deep breath. Remus looked a bit worried.

"Are you all right? You seem a bit flushed to me. Is something wrong?" He looked concerned. He put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Ow! Ow! Damn! Cuts all over shoulder!" He screamed to himself, but he kept a relatively straight face. 

Harry paused for a while. He didn't want to just burst right out the open like this, but he didn't know how to go about doing it. 

"Would you like to sit down? I'll put a pot of tea on the stove." He offered. 

Harry mutely nodded his head. He sighed to himself in relief when Remus finally pulled his hand away.

There was silence as Remus prepared their tea and Harry tried to gather his courage. How was he going to begin? 

This was one of those things that should have been confessed at the beginning. It was like when you saw someone on a daily basis and had never asked them their name. It was an awkward thing to bring up and he was not at all anxious to talk about it. 

"So." He started. "Something tells me this isn't a social visit." 

"No." He let the steam from his cup tickle his nose, looking down into it.

There was a silence. Of anything, he admired Remus for his patience. 

"Did… you know that Sirius has a drinking problem?" He asked meekly.

"A drinking problem? Uh… Harry, I'm not trying to sound skeptical or anything, but I don't think that you could really consider Sirius an alcoholic."

This wasn't staring off good. 

"I mean, I know for a fact that Sirius will have a couple of drinks every once in a while. I'll go as far as to say that he likes to get drunk, but… I don't think it's really going to pose too much of a problem. IF it bothers you, you should talk to him about it."

Harry sighed. "Remus, I don't know how to say this." He looked at Remus for any encouragement. "He's… hit me." 

He couldn't tell if it was just him, but the temperature seemed to rise. The whole discussion, the whole situation just seemed really bad from where he was sitting. He could feel the sweat on his forehead begin to form. He had really started off on the wrong foot.

He stared at Remus's face. At first, skepticism showed on his face, but then he looked a bit alarmed. 

"When you say hit, do you mean… he's attacked you?" He nodded slowly. 

This time, Remus made no attempt at making him feel like it was a misunderstanding. "I really can't see Sirius doing that Harry." 

There was a look in his eyes that made Harry wish he had never come. He knew exactly what was going on in Remus's head at that moment. "He thinks I'm just trying to get attention, doesn't he?" He told himself.

Any evidence that he might have had was all ready contaminated. He'll think that I'm completely faking it. The bruises could have been faked as well as the cuts. He had never heard of it happening, but he was almost positive it could be done. 

Remus looked at him, noticing how uneasy he had gotten. A painful feeling passed over his shoulders, and he started feeling very numb. He had the incredible urge to run away, but he knew he couldn't. He was bolted to the seat. He knew that he had to get out of this somehow. Remus was going to tell Sirius that Harry had accused him of beating him, and Sirius wouldn't know what he was talking about. As much as he didn't like having to live with the abuse, he would much rather live with it then have Sirius thinking that he would accuse him of it. 

"Remus. I know what you're thinking, but… It's not true." He offered lamely. "Can we just forget this ever happened?" "Yeah, that's likely. He's just going to completely forget that I've ever said this." He said bitterly to himself.

"Harry…" Remus looked like he didn't even know how to respond to this. "What is this all about? I mean, I know that Sirius isn't really an excellent guardian, but do you really hate him so bad that you want to make all of this stuff up about him? They- they lock people up in mental institutions for this stuff. Sirius could get sent to prison for allegations like these, and you know his record. The ministry would send him back to Azkaban faster then you can say abuse." 

Remus looked at him with disbelief. "I don't know what you were thinking about, trying to claim he's 'abusing' you, but Harry, I thought I knew you better then that." 

The numbness had come back with a vengeance. He couldn't feel anything… not even emotion. A lot of sensations he had only read about came to pass. His lungs felt like they were being squeezed. His breath hitched in his throat and he starting wondering if should even breathe. 

During the nights when he was lying in bed, listening to his heartbeat pulse with incredible force, he had been sure he had thought of every single problem that would arise from his situation. He hadn't even considered Sirius's arrest record. 

This was worse then Catch 22. If he told the truth, Sirius would definitely go to jail. There would be no hesitation, and Harry probably wouldn't even be able to defend him. 

If he lied and said that Sirius had never done anything, he probably would be locked up, and Sirius would want nothing to do with him. 

Even if he tried to tell Remus the truth, what would come out of it? Remus wouldn't believe him. And it would be worse if he did. He couldn't even be assured that he wouldn't go to the ministry with that information.

He had no idea what to do. He felt cold… sick… he wanted to throw up, or cry. Remus took no pity. He just stared at him, shaking his head. 

He didn't want to cry. There were enough people who discouraged doing it. He had been in situations when his own life was at risk before. Heck, just about once year since Hogwarts. But this was different. This time, it was between his own welfare, and his godfather's. He wanted both, but he knew there was no way that could happen. 

Why couldn't he have just left well enough alone? He could have just taken the freaking abuse. He would have been happy half of the time, Sirius would have just stayed in the dark, and Remus wouldn't have been involved. 

He took note with no heed that he was in fact shaking. His voice broke when he spoke. "I want to go home." It was possibly the dimmest thing he had ever said in his life. Had he declined in age about seven years?

Even Remus seemed surprised by it. "Harry…" He sounded reprimanding.

"No! Please, I want to go home. God. I want this to be over. I hate you! I hate him! I hate myself." He practically mouthed the last statement. 

His resolve was like a swaying brick wall. "Harry… go home."

There was a silence.                                                                         

"I can't." He knew he couldn't. I wanted to with every fiber of his being, but he couldn't.

"I don't care. Just go home." Remus's tone didn't match his words. It almost sounded like compassion. 

"Why? Do you think I have a death wish?" Harry asked bitterly. "You'll go and tell Sirius, and come back with a white van and a straightjacket."

"Look. I want to forget this ever happened just as much as you do. I really hope that you aren't going to make me regret this Harry." He sounded stern, but he looked more wasted then anything. 

Harry could have hugged him, but that would have been too normal a response. Instead burst into hysterics. 

It would have been a lot more acceptable response a few minutes previously, he realized. It was again another thing he had only heard about. One of those delayed responses. He realized just how close he had been to a nightmare. He calmed himself down the point where he wasn't in danger of hyperventilating, and Remus was again looking at him like skeptical, but now it was probably of his sanity.

He left, still shaking, and felt the humidity come over him. He smelt the makings of a storm, but knew he would make it back to his house before the rain came. He almost wished that it would start pouring, just because his mood was craving a reason to run back to his house. 

He reached it, taking a good look at the outside. It was made of stone; the perfect house. He had always imagined growing up in one of these houses. It was big enough to accommodate quite a few people, and he had always seen two parents raising him, and maybe a little brother as well. 

There wasn't that longing feeling that he got when he looked at it, though, like he had every time he saw one when he was going somewhere. It didn't make him feel yearning for a family. He had one, unhinged as it might be. But it was a family. And the only emotion that passed over him as he looked at the house was that realization. 

He was home. 


	3. Chapter 3

The Price of Love

The house was silent. It was two in the morning, and the peace was a sure sign that no alcohol had been consumed. The sounds of muffled sniffles would have been heard through the house, and heavy, jagged breathing would have accompanied.

The silence had an eeriness to it, however. The kind that you notice right before a loud noise.

That noise turned out to be a shrill bellow, following a series of bumps and stumbles. 

"What's wrong!?" A call of worry followed.

Sirius stood in the doorway of his godson's bedroom, breathing wildly, looking around for the cause of panic.

A very embarrassed Harry was sitting up in bed with his hair wet from perspiration, gasping for air.

"Shit! I'm sorry." He apologized. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to scream like that…"

Sirius looked confused and concerned. "What the hell happened?" 

"I-" he shifted uncomfortably. "I though I saw a rat." 

"I know you aren't afraid of rats Harry." Sirius said coolly. 

"I saw a bat." 

"Nor are you afraid of those." 

"I had a dream." 

"Ding ding ding. We have a winner." Sirius's voice held light sarcasm, but mostly worry. "Was it Voldemort?" 

"N-no." 

"Was this an 'I should go and alert Dumbledore' dream, or an 'I should make you some tea and send you back to bed' dream."

Harry didn't answer his question. "It wasn't anything you should be concerned about. I'm fine."

"Well in that case, I'll just go back to bed and ignore the fact that you look like you want to cry." He moved closer to the bedside.

"I'm not going to cry!" Harry insisted.

"You don't have to have tears going to down your face to cry, you know." 

"Should I take this up with the dictionary?" 

"Don't ruin this moment. It's my for Oscar nomination." Sirius joked, turning his head dramatically, and clearing his throat.

"Oh, god. Is this going to involve metaphors that take six minutes to interpret?" 

"While a stone on the ground can be but a pebble, underneath, there may lie a boulder." 

Harry raised his eyebrows. "So what you're saying is that even though I don't look like I'm upset, underneath, I probably have tons of emotional baggage?" 

"Um… actually, I just took that six minute metaphor thing and ran with it. Do you have tons of emotional baggage?" 

Harry stared. "I just screwed myself, didn't I?" he asked closing his eyes in annoyance.

"I wasn't aware of it. I had though you had a bad dream, I didn't know you were-"

"God! Sirius!" 

"Kidding! Kidding!" He held his hands up. "So what did you dream about?" 

"Nothing. It isn't a big deal." 

"It sounded like a big deal to me. You screaming like that and all." 

"I have dreams like it all the time… it's no big deal, I just forgot to tape my mou-"

Harry smacked himself in the forehead. "Stupid! Stupid!" 

"OH, God. Harry! Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?" 

"Sirius, it's not that big a deal. I've handled this before." 

"And you consider taping your mouth shut dealing with nightmares?" 

Harry looked away.

"God. I'm such a shittty godfather. I should have noticed this before. I can't believe you've been having bad dreams all summer and I never even knew." 

Harry sighed to himself. There was nothing worse then hearing Sirius blame himself for being a bad guardian.

"I'm sorry Harry. I should have realized how withdrawn you always are. I ought have known you would never tell me about something like this." 

There was nothing worse then hearing Sirius blame himself for being a bad guardian, other then hearing Sirius apologize to him for something that he himself did. 

"I'm sorry, Sirius. I'll stop having nightmares. Please, just don't blame yourself for this."

There was a silence as Sirius stared at him with furrowed eyebrows. "You know you can't stop yourself from having nightmares Harry. It's not your fault." 

He looked away. "I'm sorry." 

"For what?" 

"For not being able to stop myself from having dreams." 

"Well, God. How dare you not be able to defy the abilities of man? Bad, Harry!" He reproached in jest like speaking to a dog.

Harry blushed.

"I don't expect you to be super-human, Harry."

"I don't expect you to be able to read my mind. You're only my father after all."  

Sirius turned to look at him astonished. "Did you just call me…"

"Sorry." He blushed. "It just slipped out. I meant godfather." 

Sirius stared out at the wall. He had since sat down besides him on his bed. He was dressed in a pair of gray sweet pants. With his shirtless torso, it became apparent that Sirius shaved his chest. Seeing this made Harry self-conscious of his own long-sleeved night shirt. Ruffling his hair Sirius seemed to come back to reality. 

"How long have you been having these dreams?"

"Since… the end of last term." 

"Oh. I see now." 

"It's this same dream. I'm always out in this… sort of swamp. It's all foggy, and I don't know where I'm going." He ran a hand through his hair. "I just keep walking… not knowing where I'm going. Then, I trip and fall."

"Doesn't sound too bad to me." 

"I trip over his body, and I land on it. It's just laying out there… he's always so white. He's just this corpse. Every time I have this dream, his body gets a little more… you know, decayed." He shuddered, pulling the comforter closer to him. "And every time, I land right on top of him, so that I'm looking right into his snow white face, and his hallow eyes." 

Sirius himself shuddered, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, holding him close. "Sounds horrible." 

"I'm okay." 

"Liar." 

"Okay, I'm traumatized. I've seen worse stuff then that." 

"You shouldn't have to see that every night though."

"This is stupid. I'm fifteen! I shouldn't be having nightmares." 

"Harry, would it make you feel better if I told you that I still have nightmares?" 

"You spent more then a decade in Azkaban though." 

"I had nightmares up until my twenties. That was before Azkaban."

"From what?" 

"It's kind of personal." 

"And mine wasn't?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "Sorry. You don't have to." He added apologetic in an afterthought. 

"My father. He scared the shit out of me." 

"Your father?" 

"Oh, he rarely hit me."  Harry raised his eyebrows. "But the man could look like Satan himself when he got mad." 

"Oh." Harry hadn't mentioned the other dreams. The dreams where Sirius was leaning over him drunk shouting at him like he was going to kill him. 

Harry was tired again now. "So what are we going to do about this? I assume you aren't going to let me continue to tape my mouth shut?" 

"I don't know what we're going to do about it Harry." The pensive expression must have meant that Sirius was considering what he was going to do the nights he got drunk.

"Lets just handle this tomorrow, I guess. There is no use trying to figure it out now."

"But what do I do about tonight?" 

"What do you mean? Just go back to sleep."

"I mean, about the nightmares. What do I do tonight when I have another?"

"You mean you have more then one a night!?" Sirius seemed shocked. Harry looked away in embarrassment. Sirius rubbed his shoulder. 

"It's all right, Harry." He nudged Harry, as if telling him to move over.

Harry complied, confused. He stared when Sirius lay down on the bed. 

"What are you doing?" 

"I'm trying to fall asleep." 

"Why my bed?" 

"Because I don't feel like having to knock over everything in my room, then dart down the hallway –stubbing my toe in the process no doubt - when you scream bloody murder after your next dream."

"Oh." Harry lay down as well. This whole 'proper guardian' thing was surprising him more every day. 

He lay in silence for a while. He barely moved, as he noticed Sirius turning on his side to get comfortable. He lay quietly, his eyes trained on his godfather.

He laid there, still tense, for about a minute. 

"Harry… you're allowed to breath." Sirius had noticed his stiffness. "I'll leave if I'm making you uncomfortable." 

"No… it's just- this is new." 

"It's all right you know. I just want to be close by when you wake up again. I'll go back to my room if you want me to."

"I'm fine, Sirius. Go to sleep." 

Sirius had never been so close to him before without striking him. He forced himself to relax so that he could fall asleep. Repeating to himself 'He's sober, he's sober." Helped. 

__

Just as he had dreaded happening, his next nightmare was of the other variety. The kind that involved tears and whimpers. The kind that involved having to see his godfather's looming face, and disgusted eyes. 

He awoke, curled into a ridiculously tight ball, hugging the pillow with his concerned godfather leaning over him. He yelped in fright at the sight, and pulled the blanket over his head. 

"Harry?" He flinched as he felt a hand on his tender back. He poked a mass of hair out from beneath the blanket. 

"Did you have another dream?" He relaxed at the soft tone of voice. It wasn't the harsh, raspy, slurred voice he heard in his dreams. "Stupid question, I know." 

His godfather was leaning on an elbow beside him when he pulled the quilt from over his head. 

He realized in embarrassment that Sirius had noticed the tear tracks running down his face. 

He swiped at his face uncomfortably. 

"How are you doing?" Sirius sat up, and he followed reluctantly. 

"F-fine." He replied. The sobs still in his throat choked him as he tried to speak. "I- I deal with th-this every night, sir. It's no big d-deal." 

His throat made a strange scuffing sound somewhere between a cough, a choke and a sob. He made it again as he felt arms surrounding him, hugging him tight against Sirius's bare chest. 

The irony was not at all lost on him. Here he was being hugged by his godfather, comforting him over dreams caused by he himself. 

He took deep, strangled breaths. He hated himself for having tears run down his cheeks, but something about the situation seemed made him feel even worse then the dream made him feel.

Why couldn't Sirius act like this all the time? Loving, and tender and concerned? Every time he smiled, Harry was forever reminded of the abusive glares. The arms around his shoulders hugging him, could easily be the ones that struck him every night. His brain couldn't function under these circumstances. He was easily accepting comfort from someone he had coward from previously. 

"Calm down, Harry. You'll be all right. It's just a dream. It isn't real." To his utter horror, these words broke forth a string of tears. 

"What's wrong? What did I say?" He asked confused, holding him tighter. 

Harry said nothing. He pressed his damp cheek against his godfather. In a silent voice, he whispered inaudibly "I wish it were." 

Thank you all for reviewing my fic, it all means a lot to me.

To everyone who wanted to know why Remus reacted the way he did: 

Remus was Sirius's best friend for years. You can imagine how that would instill a sense of loyalty towards him in spite of his faults. Remus was simply denying the fact that Sirius could be capable of such a thing. Harry himself refused to believe that Sirius would do something like this. I think it would be easier to believe in your best friend rather then your late best friend's son who you've known only a year. 

To everyone who wanted to know why Harry didn't show Remus the bruises: 

By the time Harry even had the chance to show Remus the bruises inflicted on him, the situation had gotten so tense, Harry just wanted to get out before Remus though him trying to get even more attention. Remus – not willing to believe what he said - would accuse him of faking his injuries, Harry had thought that by showing him, Remus would think he was really nuts. 

I'm sorry that I really don't have much better explanations for you. But, as you probably guessed, I had no intention of making the climax chapter two. 

Addressing Moo's question: This is going to come up later. I think I mentioned in chapter one that Sirius got even more violent when having to chase Harry down. This will be elaborated a bit more later. 


	4. Chapter 4

The Price of Love

He awoke with a start the next morning around ten O'clock to find that he had not fallen off of a cliff, but off of his bed.

He had never had one of those dreams before, actually. It had started out like the ones that had him walking around with all of the fog, but when he tripped and fell, he was surprised to find that he didn't land. He just kept falling, like his broomstick had just bucked him off. 

He awoke in a heap on the floor.

He lay there for almost a minute, trying to comprehend what, exactly, had just happened, and why we was in so much pain. He had landed on hardwood floor, which wasn't pleasant. His bed was near the corner of the room that wasn't covered by the carpet.

"I'm _really_ sorry!" Sirius apologized to him from on the bed.

He let out a string of groans. He had jostled his tender ribs and landed on his abused back. "Hey! There's my other shoe." He had thought, looking underneath the bed.

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm –ffFFinne." He replied, yelping as he tried to stand up. His back cracked painfully as he did so. 

"Get back in bed."

He complied without protest. He stretched out appreciatively. It couldn't be very good for his back the way he slept: curled up in a ball, trying to be as small as possible. 

"Did I kick you? I know I stretch out too much when I sleep. I'm really sorry if I pushed you out of bed." 

"You've done worse." He thought to himself, though he felt bad. "No, I'm fine. Really." He said the latter out loud.

"Sit up real quick. I want to look to make sure I didn't leave a bruise." He sounded concerned. 

If this was how Sirius reacted to the possibility of kicking him, he didn't want to imagine the reaction he would get from lifting up his shirt.

"I'm fine, Sirius." He said with a lot less anxiety then he felt. 

"You sure? I could get you some ice." 

"It's alright. You didn't even kick me. I'm sure." That was a lie, but technically, he hadn't kicked him in the past twenty-four hours.

He sat up, and Harry realized that he should do the same. His back protested loudly, and to add to his pain, Sirius had thought it would be a good idea to grab his shoulders as if to give him a back massage. 

He cringed, knowing this was – in all normality – supposed to feel good. It wasn't. Not in the slightest. He felt like someone had stabbed him in the shoulder, and began hacking away like an axe. 

"It's all right! I'm fine." He half groaned.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No, I'm all right." Why was Sirius being so anal about hurting him?

"You should go back to sleep. It's too early in the morning for you to be up. I'll make breakfast."

"Take the hot pockets out of the cardboard box this time." 

"Trust me, Harry. That is something you only do once." 

"I'm sure." He concurred.

"I don't feel like going back to sleep. I just want to get up." 

They headed towards the kitchen. "What did you break this time?" 

"A vase." 

Realizing that Sirius would probably get suspicious about things being broken only on days he got drunk, Harry had taken it upon himself to solve that problem. 

It lay shattered in the middle of the floor. "What is this? The fourth, or fifth time you've broken this particular vase?" 

"No idea. I'm going to make breakfast." 

"How about we just go out to eat?" 

"Works for me. I'll get changed." 

"I'll have the chipped beef, and a stack of pancakes. Maybe an omelet as well.

"Would you like hash browns with that?" The waitress smiled in an exasperatingly cheerfully voice.

"Yeah, sure." 

"Take it easy, Harry! This isn't your last meal." 

"Your son here has quite an appetite." 

"Oh, he's my god-"

Harry was careful to hide behind his menu at the waitress's remark, and remained that way for the entire period of awkward silence.

"On second thought, I'll just have an order of scrambled eggs. I'm not really all that hungry after all." 

He handed the waitress his makeshift shield reluctantly and looked down at his arms crossed on the table. 

He sipped his coffee and added another packet of sugar to preoccupy himself. He could practically hear Sirius's mind shuffling through all of the plausible conversation subjects. 

"How's your homework coming along?"

"I've been done for two weeks. Remember? You helped me." 

"You've been practicing Quidditch an awful lot."

"I want to be captain this year." 

"Sucks for Slytherin." Harry looked up with a smirk.

There was another pause, but Harry knew what this one was leading up to.

"What do you think we should do about these dreams?"

"What are we suppose to do? I guess I should start taking dreamless sleep potion." He lowered his voice so that no eavesdropping muggles overheard him.

"No. You're not taking that shit." 

Harry looked up startled. "What? Why not?" 

"Because I said no."

"What kind of an answer is that?" 

The waitress interrupted them by coming back with their food. He picked at his eggs for a couple of minutes, staring pryingly so that Sirius didn't forget that he was still being questioned.

"I told you, Harry. You're not taking any goddamn drugs." He said it loud enough that a few heads turned.

"Oh, that was smooth." He scowled. "It's not a drug. I mean, come on. People take it all the time."

"The conversation is over." His voice was low, and scary. He wrapped a shaking hand around his hot coffee mug, and ran the other through his hair.

"Then I guess I'm back to taping my mouth shut." 

"The hell you will." 

"Well what the fuck do you propose? I don't see you volunteering any ideas, here." His patience had run thin.

Sirius stared at him in silence. The look he was getting was alarming him. He kept his eyes on him, staring unblinkingly until he felt so self-conscious that he felt his eye start to twitch. He wrapped the other shaking hand around his cup.

Sirius was going to kill him tonight, and he knew it. He could practically feel the beating he was going to get. His teeth had started chattering, and he was pretty sure it looked suspicious as it was eighty five degrees. 

"Check please." 

Harry ignored the stitch in his side. He was tired of walking at the pace he was going, but the fact that Sirius was actually behind him gave him the motives to keep going. 

After paying, they had left, heading for the shortcut into the forest in order to get to their house. Harry had rushed ahead, avoiding the talk that he knew Sirius and him where going to have when they got back to their house. His plan was to get ahead of him so that he could lock the door to his room and pretend to be sleeping. 

He smiled as the house came into view. He got to the door, and walked inside. At least, that's what he would have done if the door wasn't locked. He had been the last one out of the house that morning and knew he hadn't locked it. 

Sirius came up next to him about a minute later.

"Lets sit down on the couch."

He complied forlornly, curling up against the side, putting his head against the armrest.

"For starters, I don't want you cursing. Not so much, and definitely not at me." He could add that to the list of things he would be screamed at for that night.

"When I tell you that I don't want you to do something, you're going to have to trust me."

"I still don't know what the big deal is…"

"I'm telling you… you just have to trust me!"

"That isn't an answer! Why should I trust you anyway? It's not like you've given me any reason not to do it."

Sirius gave him another look. "You really want to know?" His voice was a forced calm that sort of freaked him out. It was low, like he was giving him a last warning.

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's just a potion. It's not like it's going to turn me into a drug addict." 

"You know… those are almost the same words my brother used a couple of days before he died. I found him dead in his house about a week later… he died from overdosing the same shit you want to use." 

There was silence. Dead silence. Harry didn't even breathe at this revelation. He stared unblinking into the eyes of his Godfather, his mouth open a bit.

"I'm really sorry, Sirius! If I had known, I wouldn't have said anything… I feel like shit." He felt really bad. He knew from experience that what Sirius was doing now – resting his forehead on his hand – meant he was upset.

"Yeah, well, maybe you should just listen to me when I tell you not to do something." He nodded, promising he would. 

He let a couple of moments of silence pass before he asked. "Then what should I do?"

"I don't want you taping your mouth shut just so that you don't scream."

"But I don't want you to wake up, either. Maybe you could cast a silencing charm on me?"

"I don't think that would work either."

"Then… what?"

"I want you to start talking to me about this. That's your problem… you're keeping all this to yourself. Of course you're going to have bad dreams."

He nodded hesitantly. He wasn't good at talking about his problems with people. He wasn't good at telling people anything. Just look at what had happened the last time…

"What if it doesn't work?" He was afraid to ask. "Are you- going to send me to a shrink or something?" He didn't want that to be answered.

"Harry- lets just take this a step at a time."

"I don't see why I can't just tape my-"

"Because you could choke." 

"I've been doing it all summer. Nothing has happened so far." 

"You shouldn't have to though. Any respectable parent wouldn't let their kid tape their mouth shut."

"Well you're all ready unorthodox as it is."

"That doesn't mean I abuse you."

"No- of course not." He didn't let anything slip into his voice. What he could hear of it. His heart had leapt to his throat and he barely hear.

"Lets watch some TV." He requested, still not quite recovered from that statement. 

"Yeah, lets."

Notes: Well, up until now, I haven't answered reviews for this story. I mean, if there seems to be a big huge rush of questions, I answered them (like… last chapter). But now I've got withdrawal. I want to answer you because you've got excellent questions, and this is the most reviews I've gotten in… ever I think. I mean, fifty reviews for three chapters? Nice! So, I'll answer reviews. I mean, this chapter was pretty short, and nothing really big happened. 

Angel72: Well I think you should go for it! There aren't enough out there as it is. I'd love to read it. : )

SweetSuzanne: Yeah, I've had problems with FF.net too. It's easy to curse them out when they're annoying, but since I spend all of my time here, it's like biting the hand that feeds you. I feel the changes in Sirius's character make him seem more of an enigma. Glad you feel the same.

Doneril: Well now, I can't answer the last part of your review, but I think you're being a bit harsh to cannon Sirius… actually, I think you hit the nail on the head, actually…

Pip3: Actually, that is how he acts in day time. When he isn't being neglectful that is. I meant to show the difference between drunk and sober Sirius.

Nemati: I'm glad you think so.

Felinity: Now, do you really think I can answer that? (I'm starting to feel a bit like JKR in her interviews) I can't give the plot away though.

Sondy: Well that made me feel great! A loyal 'checks to see if I've updated everyday' fan. Thanks a lot!

Malletwielderofdoom: Well someone gets it! I feel like a stand up comedian who just told a joke and only two or three people laugh. Not that great of an analogy, I know. And yes, can't you tell? Harry already does have some sort of complex or something.

Froboy: As soon as I can, I do.

Prd2bAmerican18: As soon as I can!

Natural Anthem: You- you don't? Wow, you are an individual! Half the population of fanfiction readers love to see the main character beaten to a bloody pulp! But yeah, even though I love Sirius, and up until book five found him perfect, that was my aim for this story! It's cool… how you can feel bad for the abuser, huh?

Doublemint: Sort of neat, huh? I like stories that mess with peoples mind, and make them ask "Who am I suppose to hate?"

Srialb: Since we've all ready talked, I guess I don't really have much to say. Sorry I haven't been on much. 

ShardWing: Thanks. Glad you like it.

Prongsblacks: You think it's sad? I find it tragic, and confusing a bit more then sad.

Atticus J. Finch: Oh, I love To Kill a Mocking Bird! There isn't enough fanfiction for that story! I'm glad you like it.

Frizzy: I wish everyone else got it. Of course, with controversy like that, I wasn't surprised by the windfall of "Why didn't Remus believe him?" Snape? See, I would, but Harry hates Snape, and it would be fifteen more chapters before Harry would even consider talking to him about his problems. I hadn't planned that much, and I've already got an idea for how the story will go.

Someone: Well, I've now updated both, (Or I will by the time you read this). I hope you're happy. : )

Elessar: thanks

Katini Petitedra: I'm glad. Can you tell which ones you read though? I've never found any before.

Savor Truffle: Every time I read your name, I get a chocolate craving. Thank you.

Dailynn: Thanks.

Pears: I hope this was soon enough.

ERMonkey, Queen of Insanity: Well that's a new one. McGonagall? I've never heard that suggestion. I don't think Harry likes her very much. And if he couldn't tell his friends, I can't see him telling a professor. (Remus is the exception since he's a friend of Sirius's)

Sword Wielder – Firebreath: Thanks a lot! 

RubberDuckie713: Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Sirius wouldn't come out of nowhere and just start swinging at his Godson… and it wouldn't be too accurate if he did. I'm glad you saw that. No one else mentioned the years in Azkaban part. You shouldn't overlook that. Remus coming over would be a bit too coincidental, don't you think? Well, you'll be able to see how Harry deals.

So thank you everyone. If I didn't say it in a response, that's because I'm getting a cramp in my hand from all of this typing. Lol. Keep reading!

KD


	5. Chapter 5

The Price of Love

One of the first things that he learned over the years was that what people don't know won't hurt them. The second, of course, was, why tell the truth when a lie sounds so much better?

Living with Sirius was an adventure. His second day he was putting those techniques into action. 

The first day he learned a new technique: Never attempt to run away when a drunk maniac is trying to beat you. 

He had to learn it the hard way.

He dropped his bag close to his wardrobe. Living in a cubical sized bedroom may have clouded his perception of a perfect room, but at that moment, he was pretty sure that this was as close to perfect as he would ever see. 

The walls were wood. A nice finished wood. He learned early on not to touch his cupboard walls, because Aunt Petunia didn't dunk his hand in water when removing splinters.

"Is this alright?" The voice was tentative, and almost worried.

He must have taken the suck of his breath as an affirmative answer because the tight hand on his shoulder relaxed.

"You need any help unpacking?"

"I'm fine here." 

"Did you want any-"  
  


"Everything is fine, Sirius."  

"I was going to ask if you wanted lunch." He said matter-of-factly.

"To tell you the truth, I'm still trying to digest the shards of egg shell we had for breakfast."

"That wasn't my fault! The guy on TV made it look so easy, cracking it with one hand like that. They should warn people that it's hard."

"That's alright, anyway. I like eating out." 

"Take out it is then." 

He surveyed the room without speaking for a couple of moments, and Sirius must have realized that he was either having a moment, or that he was trying to figure out where to put his things, because he didn't interrupt him. 

"Is this actually my room? Are you positive this isn't your room?" 

"Oh yeah. That's right. This is my room. I'm so stupid sometimes." He said mockingly. "You're in the laundry room, the other two are for my girlfriends." 

"I miss those good old days. I use to sleep in the laundry room, up until I got too big to sleep in the clothesbasket, then they had to buy me a cot."

"The laundry room? Seriously?"

"It was pretty nice. Especially when they were right out of the drier." 

"How about I just turn up the heat in the winter?" 

"That sounds nice." 

"You sure you don't want some help, here?"

"Nope. Everything is fine."

"Then I'll be in the living room if you need me. Come check out the TV. I'm no expert, but the color on this thing is awesome!" 

"Yeah, I'll catch up with you later." 

In truth, he felt that by unpacking all the crappy things in his trunk, it would be somewhat scandalizing towards the perfect state of his room.

He chuckled as the silly urge to jump on his bed came over him.

"Aw, what the hell?" He said, and threw himself on top of it, and bounced. This had been a favorite practice of his cousin, which explained why he got a new mattress just about twice a year. Of course, he only had to break his leg three times to figure out that it was hazardous to his health. 

"Harry?" He heard a yell from downstairs. He automatically ceased from jumping and ran to the top of the stairs to apologize.

At his confession, Sirius had waved it off. "I just wanted to know what you wanted on your pizza."

"Oh." He blushed. "Uh, what ever you're having is good. I'm allergic to mushrooms though."

"Alright. Have fun." 

He found himself too embarrassed to continue, however, and he began unpacking his things. It didn't take him long at all. In fact, he had fifteen minutes to watch TV before the pizza came.

He mechanically began setting the table for the both of them.

"Harry. Harry! We'll just eat on paper plates out in the living room." This, again, was very new. He couldn't remember anyone who ate in the living room with his relatives, except for his cousin, of course, who ate ice cream by the tub in front of the television set.

He opened the box to find one of the most heavenly smells in the world infiltrate his nose. 

"Jeez, Harry. You act like you've never smelled pizza before… Have you?"

"Not fresh." 

"I'm not even going to ask. Is pepperoni and sausage all right? You can pick it off if you don't."

"Never had them before."

"What?" 

"Dudley always used to pick them off my pizza before I could eat it."

"Then you take the first slice."

He peeled the crust from it, and found the cheese slid off of it, leaving him with a chunk of pizza crust and sauce. He looked at disappointedly.

"You suck." Sirius laughed, good naturedly. He then proceeded to grab the greasy, sauce covered cheese and throw it on top of his crust. 

He declined from asking him if he had washed his hands prior to eating. He curled it up and dug his teeth into it, practically taking the cheese off again. "Mmmmmm". 

"Good?"

He nodded enthusiastically, his mouth still full. 

The day continued at that speed, but he was eager to spend more time in his room. It was so big, and so empty, he found it freaked him out a bit. 

Around ten O'clock, he found himself drowsily falling into a half-sleep, still staring out from under his covers. It was still overwhelming to him that he would no longer be doing his homework under the cover. No more ink stains on his pillows. No more looking at his photo album at wand light.

He was startled by a sudden shattering of glass, or pottery or something similar. 

He got out of bed, and pulled on a robe and some slippers, and opened the door, to find Sirius standing in front of him.

The smell of his breath was a dead give-away he was drunk.  Before he could even react to his presence in his room, he was suddenly knocked to the ground, with a throbbing shoulder. With a kick to the back, he realized that he had to do something. "You son of a bitch!" He heard in back of him. Who was this? Sirius? How could he be doing this to him?

He got to his feet with an expression of horror on is face, and meet a warped fury that had spread over his godfather's face. 

"Goddamn little bastard! You killed my best friends, you sick asshole!" He felt another blow to his ribs, and strangled back a cry of pain. 

He responded in his fiercest instinct. He ran.

He lunged for the staircase, and found his godfather following him at a close distance. Sirius was too close! He dived for the stairs, and found a pair of arms around his chest. They both rolled down the staircase, Sirius on top of him, crushing him as he went. 

He got to his feet surprisingly fast, and lunged for the door. He tried to slam it shut behind him, but Sirius had caught the door before he could properly shut it.

He mustered all the strength he possessed, and began running towards where he could only imagine was town. 

For about half a minute, he ran with no direction, dodging trees, until was too curious, and had to turn around to see if anyone was following him. 

And there he was. Not a man, anymore, but a dog. His eyes were practically glowing.

He tried to run faster, but he was out of breath, and the stitch in his side was killing him. 

And then he was on him again, as a man. This time, though, he had a mouth, to scream insults at him.

"You little shit! Goddamn murderer! You going to kill me?" He screamed, and tackled him to the ground. For a while, he couldn't tell what was happening. He was being beaten to death. He was going to die. Die at his godfather's hands. He could barely tell when the blows stopped, so much pain surged through his body that he couldn't even tell one blow from another. The tears streamed from his clenched eyes, and he realized that Sirius had retreated. He waited almost five minutes to make sure he wasn't coming back before he made his way back to his house. 

Notes: Well, for anyone who didn't pick it up, this was a flashback to his first night. This is pretty much just so you know how his pattern of being beaten got started, and why he didn't tell anyone. I should probably finish it next chapter, and then we'll get back to the current plot.

So thank you for everyone who reviewed. I appreciate all of you for it. 

Froboy: Thank you. I will try to keep them consistent.

Linky2: Eventually, he probably will, but not for now. Thanks for your review.

Ryou Bakura Fan: Thank you. I'm glad that appeals to you. 

Savoy Truffle: I'm sorry, I misspelled your name last time. Anyway, Thank you for your review.

Glaivur grl: Well, that is the reaction I'm going for. The analogy is very good. I like that. Lets hope that it does end the same way, huh? And that is what everyone expects to happen, you realize. Everyone thinks Remus is going to conveniently walk in at two in the morning looking for some sugar. I guess we'll see what happens, huh? Thanks for your review.

SKC: Thank you. I'm trying to update frequently.

JessieRose: Thank you. Not everyone sees it that way, so thanks. I'm trying to write it that way.

Lyla Snape: Erm… Madam Hooch? That's very interesting. No one has recommended her before. *shrugs* Eh, different strokes, huh? We'll see what happens. And please don't hate Sirius on account of me! Think about how nice he is sober, though. Or don't. It doesn't matter to me, really. Thank you.  
  


Angel74: Thank you so much! : )

Wazza!:  I'm sorry it took so long. Thanks for reviewing.

Natural Anthem: Yeah, people do. It's too bad. I'm glad you like him. I'm trying to write him as the guardian, struggling to figure out how to deal with a teenager. 

MalletWeilderofDoom: If Harry knew where Sirius kept his liquor, he would have done it ages ago, I would think. Sirius keeps it hidden.

SarahPeach: Well, I can't exactly tell you if one of the two will happen, sorry to say. I don't think you're a loser. I have to say, I've done some crazy things myself. I really wanted to see a certain author's fan art (not naming names here), and spent about fifteen minutes hacking my way in. I keep forgetting to watch that show. I will! Eventually. Actually, I really liked that guy in the gap commercial a while back, which was almost identical to the new one, except a snappier song.

RosieCotton: I can't tell you thank. Sorry, but thanks for reviewing.

Black Rose9: Thank you.

Katini Petitedra: Well thank you a lot for your complement. I really wish you would post them though. 

Brittany: Thank you.

Eric2: I plan on finishing the story, and my updates should be faster now. Thanks. I try to keep the characters… well, in character. It's not really all that hard.

Cat15: Thank you for putting me on your author's alerts. I really appreciate that. : ) It will probably be a while for the climax, but I can really tell how long this story's going to be.

MistressCoCoLoVeR: Yeah, I know what you mean. This was my attempt at exploring Stockholm syndrome, actually. The most common example is when you go out with an abusive partner because you love them so much, you make up excuses for their behavior. The fact that Sirius is drunk gives Harry a good excuse not to confront him about it. A lot of people have had experiences like that… a lot of people just don't talk about them openly. Look at the Catholic Church scandal. That was covered up for… how many years? I was stalked, and almost raped about two or three years ago. No, I can assure you, Sirius doesn't know what is going on.

Felinity: *cringes* sorry about that. Everyone wants to know when he's going to be helped… to tell the truth, I can't be sure. You'll just have to read and find out.

Doneril: Thank you. He does seem like the kind of guy who would have them, don't you think? Yeah, I know what you mean about the traumatic experiences. 

Kateri1: Thank you. I hope you keep on reading.

Siri Kat: Aren't will all? Thank you for your review.

Aeryn Alexander: Thank you. I'm glad you like the idea. It isn't very common in this fandom. Yes, that has something to do with it. You'll see later on the entire picture. I guess I shouldn't comment on what you said about Remus's reaction not being right, since you accept it. I mean, Remus knew Sirius before Azkaban screwed him up, and that Sirius wouldn't act like that. Chapter three was suppose to show the contrast between drunk and sober. I hope I did it all right. Oh jeez. I hope I'm not keeping you awake with this. I guess that means I did my job right. I wonder how it is for everyone out there who is reading, since I'm the author, and I know the ending. *shrugs* Sorry.

Crazedgurl1291: I can't really see Harry telling anyone else about it after the fiasco with Remus. Thank you for reviewing.

Amyaggie: Thank you. I'm glad you like it. I hope this isn't making you hate Sirius, though.

Sirius-Lover-101: I'm trying to post better now. Thank you.

Charlie-Potter1: Thank you. I'm glad you like it.

Relle: Only for you. Actually, I think I started writing this about the time you reviewed. I got off my arse and started writing. And judging by the fact that you claimed to have read Bitter at 3 A.M. I think you're in Britain, right? And it was only about 10 O'clock where I am now, this should be up around 5 P.M. wherever you are. So, thanks for your review.

Rubberduckie713: Uh, coincidentally, the next update is… now! Nah, I'm just playing around. Not worry, just about everyone has asked me if Remus was going to walk in and catch him. Well, maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll see what happens. 

Zorro x: Thank you. I know, it seems like everyone's pretty much screwed when the shit hits the fan, huh? Thank you for reviewing.

Notes: I can't guarantee the next chapter will be up very soon. I've got a really hectic week ahead of me. I've got about fifteen books to read in about eight days. So… I'm pretty much screwed. This should be the last time I'm online for quite a while, so, sorry.


	6. Chapter 6

The Price of Love

He shook with terror as he walked through the house. Where was Sirius? Was he going to jump out and attack him? Was he safe? He examined the full extent of the damage done to the house. There was a leg broken off of the coffee table that he had crashed into tumbling down the stairs, and a couple of chairs had fallen over the in fray.

If Sirius was going to beat him again, he at least wanted to make sure he didn't have the motives to do it because he thought Harry was destroying his house.

He moved as silently as he could, collecting super glue out of a junk drawer. He recalled Sirius telling him – when he had been sober – that he had actually bought the junk he was putting in it.

He glued the table back together, doing this expertly, as he had put together a lot of things Dudley broke.

He up-righted the chairs and surveyed the room. It didn't look like anything had happened there at all. He then silently climbed the steps and closed the door to Sirius's room, where he noticed him passed out drunk.

He silently closed the door to his room, and locked it.

He couldn't sleep, and he knew he wouldn't. He gathered the covers over his head, and curled up in fear. He managed to stay that way until dawn. What the hell had just happened? He couldn't be sure. Sirius had been drunk, this was obvious to him, but how drunk had he been in order to actually beat him? How could Sirius do this? His godfather?

One thing became painfully obvious to him. Sirius was almost certainly going to feel like shit for what he had done the next day.

He couldn't live here anymore, could he? Sirius and he weren't going to be able to ignore this one. He was going to be sent away to live in some foster home, wasn't he? Or an orphanage? What about Sirius? He was going to be sent to jail because of him! He wouldn't be able to accept that thought!

He had never had the choice of what he wanted to do before, so he didn't want the decision to up to him. What was better for Sirius. What was better for him?

He loved Sirius. He had always tried to do what was best for him. Did this mean his Godfather hated him? If he had beaten him when he was drunk, had he been carrying the unconscious urge to do it all along? 'He thinks I killed my parents. Maybe I did.'

But Sirius probably wouldn't even want him. Seriously, though. It couldn't have been his idea of a joke to beat him like he had.

Why was it that shit like this always happened to him? Not one day after he moved in to his dream-home, and it was being shattered to pieces.

The light that filtered through the curtains got brighter and brighter. He was so lost in thought that he jumped at the quiet sounds of movement coming from down the hallway. He cringed of him bouncing. It wasn't loud, but he was paranoid.

He held his breath with anxiety and – making more noise to his ears then it would be possible to ignore – he threw the covers over his head and huddled with his knees to his chest.

He listened, not daring to breath, and heard the shower turn on. He let out a sigh that he refused to admit sounded like a sob.

What now? He couldn't go anywhere. That was what he was trying to prevent. But wouldn't Sirius's first matter of business be to talk to him rather then to take a shower?

It seemed like no time at all that the water was shut off, and even less that he heard the knock. Not even three seconds past when he heard the door open and his wet-haired Godfather pulled the cover off from over his head.

He yawned and licked his lips as he looked at him through blurry blue eyes. "Jeez, I know I look pretty bad in the morning, but what's this look?"

He must have looked horrified. "Uh- I – uh… sorry, I…" he stuttered horribly.

"Are- are you all right?" He looked concerned. Actually, a suspicious look came over his face.

"Fine." He said, his voice high-pitched. "Just great."

"You sure. Cause you look sick. I've got some medicine in the cupboard downstairs if you're feeling queasy."

"Nope! I'm fine." He sounded a bit out of breath from his pounding hear. "Listen… about last night…"

"Great movie, huh?"

Harry stared at him with confusion relevant throughout his face.

"The movie? The Sixth Sense?" he nodded with acknowledgement. They had seen that movie the previous night. They had rented it.

"Yeah."

"Sort of gave me a bad dream." Sirius muttered.

A dream! It must have been a dream! And he was scared over nothing!

"Come on, let's go have breakfast. I got some of those hot pocket things that I kept seeing on TV." He tugged on his arm only to have pain shoot through it.

No, he had definitely been beaten the previous night.

But, that must mean that Sirius hadn't remembered any of it! He was off the hook. Sirius wasn't going to be sent to jail, and he wouldn't be put into an orphanage. Now, all he had to do was keep the whole thing a secret. No problem.

What if he did it again? He would have to go on acting like nothing happened at all for the rest of the summer. He shook his head. He would deal with those things when he had to. For now, he was off the hook. He had dealt with more then getting a few bruises and cuts every night.

That was how it had happened. The next few nights were difficult as well, as he had to discover tricks to making sure he wasn't beaten too badly the hard way. He never tried to run after that one. He was paranoid almost every morning waking up for the first week that Sirius was going to remember what had happened, but every time, he greeted him with a smile – though slightly smaller on days when he was dealing with a hangover – and they both just had breakfast.

But now he had other problems to deal with.

"Harry, how am I supposed to help you when you won't even talk to me?"

"I told you, Sirius, I don't need help. I need some tape and-"

"Will you forget about it already? I'm not letting you gag yourself!"

"Why oh why did I have to forget to use the tape?" He scolded himself.

"I would have found out anyway."

"Probably not…"

"You're not going to drag me off the subject."

"I wasn't trying to."

"If you aren't going to talk, I could just use truth potion…"

He paled instantly. What mayhem would come about he was chock full of truth potion. What kind of shit could come out of his mouth if he had to drink that?

"Relax, I'm not going to do that, Harry."

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

"You going to talk?"

"I'm still trying to figure out what you want me to talk to you about!"

"I want you to tell me why you think you're having these dreams."

"Well that's easy… it's because I feel guilty about Cedric."

"Why?"

"Because I led him to his death… something like that…"

"This isn't a laughing matter."

"I'm not laughing. I'm not even being sarcastic."

"This is a big deal, Harry. Treat it as such."

"It isn't a big deal."

Harry stuck out his tongue.

"We're not getting very far here."

"Well that's obvious."

"Harry, do you really think that you're the reason that Cedric is dead?"

"Well… yeah." Harry put his bare feet up on the sofa. He looked over at Sirius who was stretched out on the loveseat sitting across from him.

"Why do you feel like you have to take the blame for that? When it was Voldemort who killed him?"

"Wormtail."

"Whoever!"

"Wouldn't have happened if I hadn't insisted he took the cup."

"With that logic, I would be guilty for manslaughter."

"Yeah, I guess you're luck that I wasn't the judge huh?"

"That wasn't funny at all, Harry."

"I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"You know, when Wormtail got the kiss, that was on the list of sentences. Besides killing the twelve muggles, betraying your parents, and being a death eater, he was also charged for killing Digory.

"You're positive?"

"Yeah." He could tell by the look in Sirius's eyes that he was lying. Or at least, that he didn't know.

"It wasn't your fault. No one blames you for it. You're lucky, Harry. You've got everyone who doesn't blame you for it, while your blaming yourself. It's really tough to remember that you didn't do something when everyone in the wizard world accuses you for it, while your blaming yourself too."

There was silence. Harry couldn't help but feel a bubble of laughter in his stomach. Here was Sirius, the person who had screamed insults at him while beating him senseless, telling him that he shouldn't blame himself for his classmate's death.

"Harry, you aren't responsible for any of this."

_"You son of a bitch! You kill everyone you meet!"_

"It wasn't your fault."

_"Sick little piece of shit! You did it on purpose, didn't you?"_

"You couldn't have known."

_"You're worse then Voldemort!"_

"You can't blame yourself for this."

_"Murderer!"_

"Cedric wouldn't blame you."

_"Your parents would roll over in their graves if they knew what you did to him!"_

"Harry, are you listening to me?"

"Yeah… sure, Sirius."

"Look. You need to relax and stop impugning yourself for things you couldn't have prevented. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it."

"Are you sure? It's all right if you didn't. It's a lot to take in, I know. I know you aren't going to accept that you aren't responsible for this initially, but over time, you should believe it."

"I guess it wasn't my fault."

"How could you have prevented it?"

"I could have just taken the cup myself." He offered. He had thought about how he could have prevented it so many times before.

"That would have been selfish though."

"It would have saved his life though."

"But everyone would still think you were selfish for it though."

"I would have known what I could have prevented though."

"Tell me something, Harry. Do you blame Remus for the whole affair?"

"What? Why would I blame Remus?"

"If he hadn't quit, then there would have been no spot for Crouch to fill, and he wouldn't have charmed the cup to be a port key."

Harry gaped at the analogy. He slowly nodded, seeing the point. "I know what you mean."

"Good." Sirius got to his feet, getting ready to get drunk as hell. He gave him a strong hug. "I love you, Harry."

Harry started again at the words. It was still a shock hearing those words. "Love you too, Sirius."

"Do you think you'll have another nightmare tonight?" He asked.

"I don't think so." Truth, he wouldn't. He could count on it. He wouldn't be sleeping anyway…

Notes: I started a live journal, so you know. I'll be posting the review responses there. I got quite a few. Not all of them where very nice, but I guess it's a delayed reaction. I knew it was going to happen at some point. So, I know, not a lot happened in this chapter. Next chapter should be pretty interesting, I'm hoping. It might have been short, but this doesn't have any notes at the end, so it's pretty long considering.

I'm really sorry about 'Bitter'. See, I finished the chapter, but what happened was I couldn't get to the reviews, and I don't have that good a memory. I don't know if anyone could email them to me or something, but if I can't get to them, I'm going to have post the chapter with replying to them. I'll see if I can copy them all down in school this week, while trying to catch up on all of the stories I couldn't read because my computer is a complete and total bitch.


	7. Chapter 7

The Price of Love

It wasn't exactly a full-proof plan, staying up the entire night long, but it was effective.

It seemed like the moment he resolved to stay up the entire night, his eyelids gained ten pounds. He lay on the couch as always, waiting for Sirius to arrive, and he did.

"Goddamn piece of shit!" Just as he had suspected, the anger that had been aimed at him that morning came back with alarming speed as it transferred itself into violence. "Disobedient little bitch!"

As far as injuries go, it was an extremely bad night. He was almost positive he had sprained his wrist. Cuts and lacerations were deeper then usual. A slash on his shoulder blade took an alarming amount of time to stop bleeding.

A frequent fear of his that night was that he was going to become anemic due to the blood loss. That happened some times on bad nights where he bled a lot.

Sometimes – after nights like that one – he worried terribly that he was going to get Sirius so mad that one night he beat him really bad. Not only beat him… but maybe rape him as well.

It had never happened before, but he swore to himself that if it ever did, he was going to confess about what had been happening.

It was often what he dreamed about to his distress. He often cried himself back to sleep every night after having to endure one of those dreams. It took a lot of effort to keep himself from coming clean, but he had to keep telling himself that it hadn't actually happened, and that Sirius would never do something like that. And what's more, that Sirius would be mortified to find out Harry had been worried about it happening. Imagine finding out that your godson is in fear that you're going to rape him one day.

After getting himself bandaged, his first order of business was, of course, to clean everything up. He feared that a coffee table had reached its end. He must have glued it about five times all ready, so he might as well take the heat for it, and maybe Sirius could repair it with magic.

He was in constant fear that he was making too much noise that night, and that he was going to wake Sirius up and everything would be out of the bag.

He had once read somewhere that you could stay awake for 10 straight days, but that by the 5th day, he would start hallucinating. He hoped that he would be able to get some sleep before the point where he was seeing things.

After cleaning, the next thing he did was drinking about five consecutive cups of coffee, and loading up on chocolate. If Sirius thought he was fooling anyone with the hoard of chocolate he was hiding in the box at the top of the closet, he was wrong. Maybe he should try hiding it where he hid his vodka and whiskey bottles, he thought bitterly.

He couldn't stop moving for more then two seconds at a time. His foot moved like a dog having its stomach rubbed.

As he was bored after very little time, needing to be very active with the caffeine that ran through his bloodstream, he took a jog to the 24 hour pharmacy in the little muggle town near his house. He tried to purchase some caffeine pills, but the lady behind the counter refused to sell them to him, as he had suspected. He could, however, buy two bottles of Excedrin, which had a lot of caffeine in it as well. 

By the time Sirius woke up the next day, Harry was still pretty hyper, but he was also pretty exhausted. It was a strange combination.

When Sirius came down the stairs, groggy as ever, he found a huge breakfast, with a table cloth, placemats, and shiny silverware. The table was set for five.

"I didn't know we owned placemats."

"Oh, you didn't, but I went out and bought you some." His voice was fast.

Sirius sat down, drained his cup of coffee, got up, and left the table. "I'm going back to bed."

Harry looked at his perfect table, and the stack of dishes that had acquired in the sink. He shrugged, and began attacking the dishes until they sparkled, and then he polished all the rest of the silverware, and put away the rest of it in the neatly organized drawer.

By the time Sirius woke up again, it was 12:00, and the entire living room was sparkling.

"Where did this junk come from?" he asked, looking down into a jar of multicolored leaves.

"I found it in the back of the closet, which I reorganized fifteen minutes ago. It was in the box with all the other stuff your Mom bought for you for the new house."

"You went through the care package?" Sirius deadpanned.

"Yes, why?"

"Did you ever think there was a reason that I put it in the back of the closet?"

"Not really."

"My Mom means well, she really does… she just has this knack for forgetting things." He sneezed "Like the fact that I'm allergic to potpourri." He sniffed.

"You might not want to go into the upstairs hall closet for a little while. Or the bathroom, either." He was still hopping from foot to foot, shaking a little bit.

"Harry, go to sleep." Sirius told him, with a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I got plenty of sleep. Like, almost nine hours of sleep last night. Maybe even ten hours! Or it could have been twelve, I was so fast asleep that I couldn't even tell what time I went to sleep at. I am so completely rested that I'm almost tired from too much sleep. Are you tired, Sirius? If you want to go back to sleep I can I clean up all this junk." He paused to look around the spotless room. "I can be done in about fifteen minutes if you want me to do the upstairs too. Maybe I can start working on a gazebo out in the backyard. All I'd have to do is chop down some trees. It can't be too hard because I was watching this show on TV one day when I lived with the Dursleys, and they were building a gazebo on a roof, only they didn't know that they had to secure it to the top of the roof so there was a huge hurricane this one day and it flipped off the top and fell on these three guys and it squashed them."

"Are you doing drugs?" Sirius asked him. He had been trying unsuccessfully to cut him off during his monologue. But could make himself heard past all the sneezing.

"No, of course I haven't been doing drugs, I was watching this one show on TV about this guy who did heroin and he lived out on this street and looked a lot like you did when you first got out of Azkaban, and so my Uncle was like, "See, Dudley, this is what happens to people when they do drugs." And I was like, "Then why do they do drugs at all?" and he was like, "Because they're freaks" and I was like, "But I'm a freak, and I don't do drugs." And he was like, "Go to your cupboard, you insolent little brat." And I was like, "Alright."

Sirius looked like he was going to burst from restraining his laughter. "How much coffee have you had, Harry?" He then made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and sneeze.

"Oh, not all that much. Only around ten, maybe fifteen cups. But coffee is the best thing in the world for you. I don't see how anyone can live without it! Coffee is amazing. I don't understand why tea is such a big British thing, we should all be drinking coffee!"

Sirius sighed. "So you're going to be up for like, the next twenty-four hours, jumping off the wall, aren't you?"

"I've never tried jumping off the walls. Is that cool? I was watching this one movie where these guys were all doing karate, and this one guy walked up the entire wall and then he did a back flip off of it. Can I try that? Maybe if I get a head start, maybe from here." Sirius grabbed him by the scruff of his neck to his pain as he tried to lunge himself at the wall.

"What do I do with a kid who has drank way too much coffee, and can't sleep?" Another sneeze.

"Are you talking to yourself?"

"Yes, Harry, I am." He wiped away a couple of tears, and he looked a bit red in the face.

"I'm going to go throw away the potpourri in the trash, and then I'm going to go take out the trash, then maybe I'll take all the trash to the dump. That's only about two miles away, isn't it?"

When he had dumped all the bowls of flowers into the garbage, he put them in pile quite a ways away from the house. He hadn't planned on being discovered this early on, but it wasn't exactly like Sirius wasn't going to be able to tell if he was shaking with caffeine.

"Harry." Sirius ambushed him in the living room, his eyes still pretty red. "Look, you're pretty brained right now, so I'll spare you the lecture as you probably won't hear half of it anyway, but I'm not going to have you jumping around the entire day. I've got some potion in the cabinet that you can take that will make you go to sleep."

"Seriously! I got plenty of sleep last night. If I get anymore sleep, I could die! You don't want me to die do you? Do you want that on your conscience that you killed your godson? I'll stop talking, really, Sirius. I'll stop right now."

Sirius rose his eyebrows in amusement.

"Just this one thing, and then I'll be quite for the rest of the day. If you object so much to me taking sleeping potion, why do you have it in the house?"

"It's for emergencies, and sleeping potion isn't half as addictive as dreamless sleep potion."

"Oh, okay. So, I'll be quite now? Seriously, I won't say another word for the rest of the day."

There was silence for about fifteen seconds, during which time, he tapped his foot with the speed of a rabbit, he wrung his hands, and his eye twitched horribly.

"Harry, go to bed."

"But I-"

"I said to go to bed." His voice was a bit forceful now. He couldn't remember, but he was pretty sure this was the first time he could he remember Sirius making him do something without asking him first.

"You're not the boss of me. I don't have to go to bed if I don't want to."

"Oh, you don't do you? Well, you can walk, or I can carry you there, force the potion down your throat and tie you to bed."

"You're not that insane. You wouldn't do that." His voice did not hold the air of someone who felt sure of themselves."

"Oh, I hadn't been planning on doing it, but now that you've questioned my authority now."

"But Sirius! I'm going to have those dreams again!"

"Well, its quite obvious that the only reason you drank ten effing cups of coffee was so that you wouldn't have to sleep, so you wouldn't have to experience those dreams. That may actually be the stupidest plan I've ever heard of, but be that as it may, you're going to have those dreams regardless of when you sleep unless you stop doing shit like this, and start believing what I'm telling you."

"Who's the one loaded up on coffee and chocolate here?" he asked cockily. He wondered if Sirius would be such a prick about this if he realized he was inadvertently doing this for him.

Instead of responding with an equally brash comment, he swung Harry up over his head, and did exactly what he had threatened to do. 

After making a pit stop in Sirius's own privet bathroom, he dropped him on top of his bed hastily, and Harry's sore back moaned in protest. "Are you going to drink this, or am I going to have to make you?"

"But Sirius! I- please? Don't make me sleep." But he was all ready really tired. The caffeine high was wearing off fast, and it was leaving him falling asleep where he sat.

"Harry, come on now. You can't honestly stay up for the rest of your life. I mean, sure, the coffee was a quick fix, but how long were you expecting to stay up?"

"Maybe until I figured out a better idea?"

"And how long before you figure that one out? If you would just start believing that you aren't responsible for half of the stuff you think you are, you wouldn't be in this mess."

But it wouldn't. He like the dreams with Cedric a hell of a lot more then the dreams with Sirius abusing him, even though he made less noise with the abusive ones. He looked up at Sirius, pleading him with his eyes. Even on the super small chance he would actually be allowed to stay up for the rest of the day, or even for the next five minutes, what was he supposed to do? He was falling asleep as Sirius talked to him.

"Oh, come on, Harry. I can tell you're tired. I'm still giving you the potion, so you'll sleep through the night, though, because I don't need you up at three in the morning making another fifteen course breakfast that we'll be eating until the end of summer.

"The night! You can't, Sirius! Yueah-" The small bottled was shoved down his throat, and he almost choked on it. He was going to have to rely on Sirius beating him to wake him up if he got drunk that night.


	8. Chapter 8

The Price of Love

In a way, the beating did succeed in waking him up, but not before the worst thing that could have possibly happened occurred. It had happened a lot his first few days; when he wasn't use to the beatings, he would awake to Sirius knocking him out of bed, so that he could curl up on the floor and wait for the beating to be over.

That night had been one… if not _the_ worst nights he had ever experienced _before_ it had occurred.

He shook all over, succeeding the abuse, probably a mixture of the potion being cut short when doing its work, the thrashing he had just received, and probably most relevant; his dreams. He had been locked inside of one of the worst nightmares he had ever experienced in his life, but it was like it wouldn't end.

He hadn't heard anything from Sirius during the abuse about his screaming like he had expected to, so he must not have screamed out, but he had dreamed no less.

Usually, it was his falling dream, but after he fell, he awoke in screams, after his abuse dream, it eventually ended… that night it hadn't. There had been no end to it all.

It was mostly a blur to him at that point. It had been a swirl of pain and torment, even though there had been no physical pain. It was mostly terror though, that had him in such a state.

No, as he stumbled into the bathroom, and stared with such pain at the mirror, it was the black eye that was his biggest worry.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Harry tried to wake up. This had to be a dream, right? It wasn't like he hadn't had them before. Dreams that Sirius found out what had happened. The terror was quite equal to the other dreams. Usually it all happened, and he awoke right before the got the response, but this was real. He was going to see the reaction all right.

Quidditch injury his ass! Sirius would have to be blind not to get suspicious if he showed up with a black eye and a half ass story that he had been hit with a bludger while playing quidditch… what, in his sleep? Sirius had put him to bed with his face being perfectly unmarked. How was he to explain?

He couldn't do anything. Wearing a ski mask for a week wouldn't exactly work either.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't hide in the bathroom for the rest of the week. He couldn't hide there period. He had to go down the stairs to clean up the mess Sirius had made.

He took a deep breath. He knew Sirius wouldn't be awake, but that didn't stop him from running down the stairs like he was being chased.

He discovered the downstairs pretty untouched. Usually Sirius didn't venture down there when Harry was upstairs.

His room was trashed. His compulsive nature made him cringe at the sight of it, but he picked about half of the stuff up off the floor, and gave up halfway through, his hands were shaking so bad.

He wanted nothing more then to hide underneath of his covers, and hug a pillow, so he did.

Sirius would think it odd that he wasn't up by ten O'clock, but he had worse things to deal with.

He could hear the stumbling through the hallways, but he didn't dare breath.

It was all over.

He realized the idea way to late, that he might have been able to buy some concealer at the pharmacy, but he wasn't exactly an expert when it came to make-up.

Sirius must have been shocked to find no coffee percolating in the pot, and that he wasn't up bustling around, but he would probably think it an effect of the sleeping potion he had shoved down his throat.

Half-an-hour later found him still curled in a ball, but now his nervousness had taken him so that he wanted to pace. He couldn't get out of bed though. Sirius couldn't hear any noise. Maybe if he was quite enough, Sirius would ignore him long enough for the swelling to go down in his eye enough so that he could walk around without it being noticed.

Of course, nobody seemed to be on his side right then. A knock on his door alerted him to Sirius's presence outside his room. "Hey! You alive in there?"

"Uh… no." he replied uncertainly. Maybe he should have stayed silent, but then Sirius would have come in.

"Come on! Don't you want to eat lunch before we go to the movies?"

The movies! He had completely forgot! They were supposed to see that new movie out.

"You go without me, Sirius! I'm feeling kind of sick!"

"Sick?" He heard the doorknob turn.

"Uh, don't come in! I'm contagious!"

"Oh, don't worry about it, Harry. Hell, I'm practically immune to AIDS. I haven't been sick since I was five years old."

"Well, you don't want to start now, Sirius… Sirius! NO!" The sheet was yanked over his head.

Harry could feel himself go numb and his body begin to tremble.

"Harry? You all right? You're shaking something awful."

"Uh-I"

"Do you have rings around your eyes… wait, it's just that one… Harry, do you have a black eye?"

He gulped. Here it was. The thing he had worked his entire summer to prevent. Looking at it from this point, it didn't seem worth it. Sirius had found out, as he knew he would, but after waiting for almost a month, and enduring all the pain to get the same effect… he had been stupid to try to cover something like this up.

"Harry? What's wrong with you? Are you alright?" He put his hand on his forehead. "You don't feel warm. You're awfully pale."

His shaking was increasing to the point where he could barely hear over his teeth chattering.

Sirius sat on his bed… "Way to close!" he told himself. Not in a situation like this. He hated people getting to close to him when he was close to having a panic attack… not that it came up much.

"Harry… where… how? You were asleep this entire time, weren't you?"

"Ye- yes."

"What happened then? You couldn't have slept on it wrong, it looks like someone… did this… to you…"

It seemed to Harry as if he heard actually heard the click of everything in Sirius's mind fitting together.

"Oh…oh, God… did I…"

His breathing became erratic. He felt the walls closing in on him, and the door slammed open on its own.

He felt Sirius's arms wrap around his shoulders, but he looked as if he was uncertain of that small motion.

"Tell me where you got that from, Harry." His voice held an unnatural calm… like he was merely asking him if he had finished his homework.

His breathing remained as jagged as it had. Sirius's tone had no effect on his panic. "It wasn't your fault, Sirius! It wasn't! Please!"

Sirius's eyes closed, and looked like he couldn't decided whether to leave the room, or hug him until he couldn't breathe. He didn't have a long way to go now.

"I should have known. I should have known it. The dreams! All the broken shit around the house! My God! Was I blind? Your dreams? They weren't about Cedric, where they?"

"You were drunk… it wasn't your fault." He was barely a whisper now. Whenever Sirius got this excited, it never turned out to be a good thing.

"God, how long has this been going on? How much have I done to you?"

Too late to save face now.

"Since the first night."

"SHIT!" He was pacing now, looking like he was about to tear his hair out.

A stack of papers on his desk went flying, as Sirius took out his distress.

He up righted his desk chair, and sat down, putting his head in his hands, and his arms on top of the table.

Then something happened that he could have never dreamed. He watched with uncertainty as Sirius's shoulders shook, and for a second, he though he was going to turn into the Incredible Hulk or something.

Then he heard it: A strangled sob.

What was happening? Sirius was crying? The same man who spent thirty minutes everyday in the gym, and rode a motorbike, and wore a leather jacket? Sirius never cried. He would never cry…

But there he was… sitting at the desk, his shoulders shaking. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. He had never been comforted when he cried. No one ever saw him cry, though. No one except for Sirius, at least. And he had hugged him when that had happened.

He patted his shoulder tensely, not sure if he was doing it right. He tried speaking reassuring words. "It's all right, Sirius. It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known."

He heard a wet sniff, and Sirius looked up at him with red eyes, and tears still running down his face. "If you b-believe that, then you must have had too many blows to the h-" he was cut off by another round of sobs.

Giving up on his patting technique, he pulled at Sirius's arm, which came away loosely, due to his weak state, and gave him an awkward hug. He was squatting uncomfortably, but he didn't dare move.

It seemed to work, because he could feel some of Sirius's weight shift his shoulder, making him even more uncomfortable. "I'm so sorry Harry! Oh God, I'm sorry!"

"It's all right, Sirius. Calm down…"

"Calm down…when I've just found out I've been abusing the most important person in my life?" He froze, hearing the words, but continued to rub Sirius's back, though it didn't seem to be having too much of an effect.

"It's all right, Sirius. I forgive you… it doesn't matter."

"It does matter." He stood up. "Harry, if this doesn't bother you then you have something wrong with you!

"But you were-"

"Being drunk isn't an excuse, Harry! I beat you!"

"You would have stopped if you had known what you were doing."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He demanded, looking mad now.

"I didn't want you react like this."

"But I was beating you, Harry! I know we don't talk much about things like this, but this is one of the things that you TELL ME!"

Harry could feel himself shudder and flinch. Of course, because nothing went his way, Sirius noticed, and looked like he wanted to cry again.

"What have I done to you?"

"Sirius… I'm fine, really. I was just alarmed…"

"No, literally… what have I done?"

"You've never broken anything, or anything like that."

"Have I ever…" Sirius looked mortified "I didn't do that… did I?"

"NO! No, you've never done that." Harry said vehemently.

"Let me see." Sirius looked pensive, then angry. "That's another thing I should have realized! You're always wearing clothes like it's winter time. God, I was so fucking clueless!"

"You- You promise not to freak out?"

"No, but I'll try not to…"

He pealed off the sweater he had gone to bed with.

Sirius flinched at the blinding sight of white gauze. "Damn!"

"It isn't as bad as it looks."

"Well I can't see anything."

Harry sighed, and began unwrapping a bandage on his left arm. Sirius removed some of the bandages on his shoulder.

"How did you manage to do half of these yourself?"

"Experience"

"I shouldn't have asked."

Upon removing the dressing on his shoulder, Sirius took in a sharp intake of breath. "I never liked blood."

"You don't have to look at everything, Sirius. Most of it will go away by itself…"

"No, I did this to you… I need to see what I did. How did this one happen?"

He could tell Sirius was being careful with his words. "Y- uh, with a broken bottle."

"I could have slit your throat." Sirius said, his breath coming faster.

"You didn't try, Sirius." he said, trying to be sympathetic.

"But I could have."

"But you didn't."

"What about that one?"

They spent the next fifteen minutes going over bruises and cuts. Multiple times, Sirius hugged him, ignoring the pain it invoked upon him.

"First thing tomorrow, we're going to the hospital, and get you fixed up."

"Hospital? N- no! I don't like doctors."

"Harry, it wasn't an option. They keep patient confidentiality, anyway. We have bigger things to discuss, anyway."

This was the part he was dreading.

"You want me to help you pack?"

Cliffy! AHHHHH! You're going to die from frustration, right? I know, I am to…


	9. Chapter 9

The Price of Love

"Wh-what? Pack?"

"Did you think that you were going to live here after I found out about this?"

"And you wonder why I tried to keep this a secret."

"I want to know what you find so appealing about me that you didn't tell me this until I found it out myself?"

"You… want me… most of the time."

"I like you all of the time, Harry."

"You're the only one."

"I am not! A lot of people love you, Harry."

"A lot of people love me… you're the only one that puts up with me living with you though. Where are you going to send me?"

"Well, I'm sure Remus will have you for a few weeks, maybe the summer… I'm not sure."

"He thinks that I'm an attention-seeking psychopath.

"What!? Why?"

"I tried to tell him about what you were doing, but he thought I was just trying to get attention or something, and he wouldn't listen to me."

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "Well, I'm just going to have a talk with about this."

"But what's going to happen, Sirius. I mean, if the ministry gets wind of this, they'll… they'll send you back to Azkaban, or…"

His voice was low and depressed. "Maybe I should be sent back."

"What? NO!" Harry blinked in shock.

Sirius looked at him with sad eyes. "This is the most pathetic thing I've ever done. Harry, you deserve so much better then this. I mean, honestly… the fact that you kept this to yourself because me hitting you was the better alternative really says something about your life."

"Please, Sirius. Please, can't I stay here. Can't you stop drinking… everything will be okay then."

"Harry, you have nightmares about me. How are you supposed to go on living with me when I'm a constant reminder of what I did to you?"

"Sirius… but…"

"It's true and you know it."

"I'll deal with it. Sirius, I'm going to be having nightmares anyway, you know? And at least you'll… you'll be there for me when I wake up…"

"Harry, I mean…" Harry let him stumble over his word for a few seconds, but the more he did, the more obvious the reason became.

"You don't want to quit drinking… I'm right, aren't I?" His voice held a tone of suspicion, but he knew his answer…

"That's isn't… I will quit, Harry… I promise."

"If I'm not living with you, it really won't matter, will it?" He said, disappointedly.

"Harry, don't be like that… I will quit. Really, I will."

He opened up his closet and got out his trunk, and started packing it up.

"You sound so very determined." His voice toneless.

"I don't have to prove myself to you." His attitude turned angry, and he felt a wave of numbness come over him.

"Gee, it doesn't seem like my fear of you being very upset with yourself over finding out what you did seems justified."

"You know what, Harry? You mind your own business. Of course I'm upset with myself."

"You sure show it strange."

"Shut UP! I don't need to take this from you. You're still fourteen-years-old!"

"What are you going to do, beat me?"

"For someone that flinched at the sight of me getting mad, you sure are a cocky little bastard, aren't you?"

"If you want to fight me right now, go ahead. I'm not afraid of you when you're sober." But the shaking in his hands wasn't from anger.

"Harry…" He sat down on his bed, and put his head in his hands. "God, I'm sorry, okay?"

Harry stopped packing to sit down besides him. "It's all right."

"Yeah, like hell it is. I'm going to quit. I'll… I'll go into rehab. No, I'll do it on my own."

"Are you sure? It's really hard, Sirius. You think you can manage it on your own?"

"Do you think I can do it?"

After a moment of hesitation, He nodded. "If you really want to, I think you can."

"Then I will."

"Does this mean… that I can stay?"

With a deep breath, Sirius said "We'll see."

"Was that really necessary?"

"Not only was it necessary, but it was on sale."

"I can't see something like this being cheap."

"You leave that to me. Hand me that bowl over there." Sirius poured the contents of the jar into the wooden bowl.

Sirius had gone out for almost an hour, without prior warning, and had returned with a pensive, to Harry's distress.

"How many, erm, times, do you think I've done it?"

Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. "Maybe, like, ten to fifteen times."

Sirius winced, with an expression of grief. "Well, then, we've got a long day ahead of us, then don't we?"

"You want to see every time?"

He hesitated.

"No one will blame you if you don't, Sirius."

"No… I'm going to do it."

"Then I'm coming with you, at least."

"No- no, you've all ready gone through this once…"

"Sirius, I have dreams every night of this, I've seen it more then once. I'm just going to give you support."

"You don't have to…"

"No, I'm going. But, wouldn't this be considered underage magic, putting memories into this thing?"

"No, don't worry about it, I used to have a pensive growing up… or my brother did, and I borrowed it… lets just get to this, shall we?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed. "Are you sure you really want to put yourself through this?"

Sirius nodded almost indistinctly.

"What do I need to do?"

"All right. Take your wand and put it to your temple while thinking of the memory, then, move your wand slow away from you, and you should feel sort of like you're pulling something out of your ear. It might tickle a little bit the first couple of times."

"Ow!" He scowled. "That hurt."

"Yeah, sometimes it hurts, but only the first time."

"Ow! What are you trying to do to me?" It sort of felt like someone was pinching a nerving inside of his ear.

"Oh, come on. It's not that bad. By now you should have gotten use to it, and it won't hurt so much."

"Maybe it's because these are such painful memories."

Harry furrowed his eyebrows in thought. He finished, and noticed Sirius cast a hesitant look at the swirling liquid.

"Come on then."

They both but fingers inside of the bowl, exchanging nervous looks with each other.

They appeared inside of Harry's darkened bedroom, and he noticed himself resting against his pillows. He watched in anticipation as he opened the door to the bedroom to meet the drunken version of his Godfather. He turned from the sight of himself being pummeled, and knocked down the flight of stairs, and watched the sober version of his Godfather, and his response.

Sirius's breathing had all but stopped as he watched the exchange. "Oh God." He read on his Godfather's lips.

Rushing to the top of the staircase, they watched themselves beat, or be beaten with a sense of horror.

He noticed, as Sirius chased after himself as a dog, and he chased after Sirius, that he kept him close besides him at all times.

The tight knot in his stomach grew even more painful upon watching Sirius beat him. When he had left, they both walked over to see his own coiled and broken self shake, sob and wheeze on the now red grass. He felt a flush of embarrassment in seeing himself like that, but Sirius hardly paid notice to his discomfort. He was grasping his arm so tightly he thought it might be purple by this point.

He peeked out, and seeing no immediate danger, slowly sat up and got to his feet.

The memory ended and he was suddenly inside of his own bedroom again.

Sirius looked like he was still in shock. He looked down at him, his hand still clasping his arm. "I- What- how could I have… Oh my God!"

This time, he could barely make out his own self in the dark room, but he knew he must have been hiding under the covers in a ball.

Sirius was staring at his present form with scared eyes. "What happened this time."

"Watch."

The only noise was the slight whimpering coming from under his blankets. They jumped at the loud bang of the door being banged into.

The slurred unlocking charm was muttered, and then the violence commenced.

He squeezed his eyes in pain as Sirius moved up his arm to his shoulder and gripped painfully tight as he watched. "The stain guard. That's why I never noticed any blood on the floor." Sirius had charmed all the rugs to soak in stains so they wouldn't be seen.

He nodded his head, still undergoing a lot of pain. He didn't watch the scene unfold. He had watched it many times in his mind and his dreams. He watched Sirius's face as he watched.

He looked on with horror in his eyes. He looked liked he was watching a train wreck taking place and couldn't do anything to help. Every blow he heard delivered he moved a bit closer to him, until he staggered, almost losing his balance. It didn't get Sirius's attention, however. Nothing could distract him from the sight in front of him.

Harry saw his chances of ever living Sirius again wilting and pretty much dying.

He realized briefly that the scene was changing. "Where are we?" Sirius asked him. "We're... is this the shrieking shack? Why?" he asked. They stared into the tunnel and he could briefly see the outline of a cat.

Harry smiled sheepishly. Sirius realized what was going on, and looked at him with raised eyebrows. "This isn't going to work, Harry."

"You know what this means?" he heard a gruff voice say; nothing like it was now. "Turning in Pettigrew?"

"You're free." He heard his own voice, before it had change. He cringed at the sound of it, and he could see Sirius doing similar besides him. They began backing up so they could keep themselves in front of them as they spoke.

"Yes…," he heard Sirius say. "But I'm also- I don't know if anyone ever told you – I'm your godfather."

"Dear god, I looked bad, didn't I?" his now almost completely restored to health godfather asked him.

"Yeah, you did. But God, do you hear my voice?"

He watched his face light up at the suggestion of living with Sirius.

Sirius looked at him. "I'm sorry it took so long." He said.

"There was nothing you could have done, Sirius."

He saw the smile light up on Sirius's wasted face and he knew that Sirius saw it too, as he accepted with enthusiasm.

The memory ended before they could remember exactly what had happened next, but it moved them to another day of abuse and horror.

"I- I really can't believe any of this shit. How did you manage to keep any of this secret from me, Harry?" he asked many memories later as he watched his counterpart pummel his godson mercilessly.

"You usually don't see what you aren't looking for, Sirius."

"I don't know whether this means that you're really good at hiding things, or I'm just really clueless."

"I think it's a little of both." He said smirking, even whilst realizing that the situation wasn't humorous in the least.

Sirius shook his head.

The scene changed many more times, and by the time they had finished, they where both tired and hungry. Sirius heated up a pizza in the oven, and they went to bed.

* * *

"You remember what we're going to say?"

"That I got all of my wounds because I belonged to a gang, so I quit." He replied for the fifth time that day. "Will this guy believe me though?"

"I think your healer's a woman, and yes, she'll believe you. She isn't allowed to say anything about this anyway. Wizard healers are sworn not to speak of, or question their patient's cases. That's why we're in this smaller office in Ireland. They're less likely to recognize you."

"Sirius, who would recognize me? I've got red hair and this… this cleft chin. I hate this chin. I hope you know that."

"Yeah, you've told me many times. It'll wear off in three hours though. Relax. Keep your voice down, and call me Paul."

"The receptionist is away, and no one is around. Who's going to hear me?"

"Okay, so I'm paranoid. I shouldn't be making you do this anyway. I mean…"

"It's no big deal Sirius. Obviously I'm not going to tell her the truth. But won't they know my name? Don't they need my insurance information or something? Do I even have insurance?"

"Kevin Poole." He heard an Irish sounding voice say. Sirius nudged him.

"Don't worry about it, Kevin, I took care of all of it."

He got up and looked at Sirius.

"Aren't you coming with me?"

"H- Kevin. You're 14. Do you really need me to go with you?"

"Yes, I do. I don't do doctors… healers… whatever. I told you that."

"Okay, fine, I'll come with you."

"Yer healer will be with yeh in a bit, Mr. Poole. What is it yer here for?" she asked, looking at Sirius.

"Erm… injuries. He's being treated for injuries."

"Okay. Stand still while I measure weight and height please, Kevin." She instructed, waving her wand.

Harry cringed, but did as told. "115 pounds. That's not weighing yer clothes. Are you aware that yer son is underweight for 'is age?" the nurse asked Sirius.

"Yeah, I know. We're working on that." He said, giving Harry a look.

The nurse took his blood pressure and his pulse. "Yer pulse seems to be abnormally high. It might be recommended that yeh come back and have it taken again just to see that you've nothing wrong with yeh. It's probably just nervousness."

He gulped. Now there was something wrong with his heart?

"Yeah, okay. I'm sure everything's fine though." Sirius said, reassuring him with a small smile that said he wouldn't be coming back.

"Okay, then, Kevin, yeh can strip down to yer skivvies and the healer will be with yeh shortly." Harry realized just how obnoxious her smile was at that point, but she had already left.

He sat up on the examining table where he had had his tests run, shuddering. He had had bad experiences in the past with doctors. The Dursleys, being required to do so, took him to the cheapest, cruelest doctors that they could find. They, of course, never stayed in the room with him, so the doctor could do anything he damn welled pleased. And usually, he did.

"Harry, you're shaking. Are you all right?" Sirius asked him, concerned.

"You… you said this healer is a woman?" he said, not sure if he was more or less reassured by this.

"Nothing to be worried about, Harry. I used to go to this healer for checkups when I was a boy. I used to live in Ireland briefly. I doubt anyone would recognize me. They have a good reputation here."

His bandages had been unwound when he had gone to bed the previous night. Sirius had fought with him to let him stay in his room, offering to sleep in a corner, even, but Harry had blatantly refused. Of course, he had a nightmare… a sweaty, tearful nightmare, and however hard he had tried to tell himself that he was okay; he had ended up waking up Sirius and sleeping in his bed.

He was unnerved, as was Sirius but the amount of red that took up Harry's body. He sat, trembling almost violently in his boxers; scary memories he had blacked out coming back to haunt him.

Sirius seemed to come out of his own thoughts, and realized just how uncomfortable his godson was. He stood up and wrapped a gentle arm around his shoulder. Seeing the wounds helped him to remember not to be so rough with him. He took off his leather jacket and pulled it around Harry's shoulders.

He put his arms into the sleeves. It was a few sizes too big and he could easily pull his knees to his chest and wrap it around the front. He nestled his head in Sirius's side as he returned the arm to his shoulders.

The healer appeared very suddenly, and he automatically snapped his head up, but not before noticing a look from his healer clearing saying "Awww!"

"Hello…" she looked at her chart. "Kevin." She surprisingly didn't have an Irish accent. He looked at her nervously. She looked friendly enough, and his godfather _was_ right there. She couldn't… do anything to him.

Sirius pulled away, and Harry reluctantly pulled off the jacket. He was a bit surprised that all she wore on her face was a look of clinical interest. "And how did you get these?"

"I was in a gang, but I've quit." He said, realizing the moment after that he had been too quick and sounded rehearsed.

She raised her eyebrows. "You don't look the type to be in a gang. You're awfully small."

He scowled at her, pretending to be offended. "Yeah, well I was."

"Okay, if you say so. So, are any bones sprained or broken that you know of?"

"No, nothing like that."

"So these are all just cuts and bruises?"

"Yes. That's it."

"Were you raped?"

Harry was taken aback by how forward this woman was. When he didn't answer immediately, she began prodding him to make sure he told if he was. "If you were, you should really get checked for STDs or AIDS, because there is no cure for muggle AIDS that wizards have found, and you should really know so that you don't spread it to anyone."

"See… Paul? You shouldn't joke about something so serious. I could _have_ AIDS."

Sirius turned red. Though with embarrassment that he was so tactless, or because Harry was telling him that he might have given him AIDS, Harry couldn't tell.

"You told me you weren't raped, Kevin." He said with a strained voice.

"I know, I wasn't. I was just saying."

"If you're unsure… it could have happened when you were unconscious. Are you homosexual? Have you ever experience an-"

"No, okay? Could we please move off the subject?"

"Okay, if you're sure, Kevin."

"Most of these bruises are in their last stages of healing. I can't do anything about them, and they'll go away in a day or two. I can fix all the cuts and new bruises. And I can get rid of that black eye for you."

After almost five minutes of continuous spells, Harry was almost as good as new.

"Don't forget to schedule another appointment to check Kevin's heart on your way out." She said, leaving.

They both ignored her comment and headed straight for the fire.

"What now?" he asked, stepping back into their house.

"Now, we visit Remus."

Notes: I haven't had much time lately, and I'm getting a hell of a lot of reviews lately, so it's not looking like I'm going to be able to do them for a while.

If you've noticed, this chapter is longer then most of my last. I know, most people start off with small chapters and make them bigger. I do the opposite apparently. I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up. I'm doing some work on an original story, and I'm probably going to get a job for the summer, but this and Bitter are pretty much at the top of my list of things to work on, so it shouldn't be _that_ long.

Keep checking my LJ for teasers. And yes, I thought that the comment about AIDS was tactless too. I had actually planned on taking that out but I was under a lot of pressure to get the chapter up, so I hope this helped at all.


	10. Chapter 10

The Price of Love

"Hey, Sirius! Come in." Remus greeted his godfather who was sufficiently blocking him from view. He couldn't explain why he was so apprehensive about meeting with Remus. It was an inborn reaction, he supposed. Plus the fact that he was – or would be – the only person who knew of the abuse besides the abuser, and even then…

"Thank you Remus. I trust you're doing well. Lets sit down, shall we? We have a lot to talk about." Remus hesitantly sat down on the couch.

"I'll put on tea." Harry said quietly, trying to fade into the background. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that easy with only three people in the room.

"No, Harry. You can sit down on couch as well." He told him, conjuring up tea and biscuits that quite obviously wouldn't be touched.

"Hello Harry." Remus said with a small voice as he sat down at the end of the couch.

"Hi." He said, looking at his elbow resting on the armrest.

There was silence, and when Harry looked over to Sirius, what he saw didn't look too good. There was something scary in Sirius's eyes as he looked towards Remus, pacing in front of them.

"I guess you know what this is about Remus."

"N-no… What's going on?"

"Don't play stupid with me, Moony!"

"Tell me what you're talking about, Padfoot." he commanded bravely in a tired voice.

"You knew! He told you and you didn't say _anything_!" Cutting right to the chase.

Remus breathed out with exhaustion. He put his head in his fist, placing it on the armrest. "Oh, God."

"What were you thinking, Rem? How do you hear someone tell you that their guardian's abusing them and not do anything?"

"I'm so sorry, Sirius…"

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to, Remus!"

Harry, who had been hoping that they would continue to yell and leave him out of it, edged away as their eyes turned on him.

"You were telling the truth, Harry?" Remus asked shakily.

"Why the hell would we be here if he wasn't, Remus!?"

He nodded, almost invisibly.

"Harry… I'm so sorry, Harry."

He leaned forward, arms open. It was a true sign of what kind of day he was having that he wasn't sure what Remus was doing until he was uncomfortably wrapped in a hug.

"Don't _touch_ him Remus."

The thought was in all of their heads, but no one, probably not even Remus himself, though he would actually come out and say it.

"_I_ shouldn't touch him, Sirius? _Me_?" he asked, getting up, walking over to face him.

There was a long silence as Sirius steadily turned more and more red.

Harry watched with fear as they circled each other, noting the bitter irony that they were acting quite like their counterparts; two canines fighting to assert their territory.

Finally, when Harry almost couldn't bear to see such a bright shade of red plaster on Sirius's face, he pushed Remus in the chest. It wasn't too hard. It was a silent challenge.

Remus pushed him back, responding with an equally soundless but clear acceptance.

He stood slowly, realizing what he was walking into, but doing so anyway.

In his adrenaline, the coffee table magically moved itself left and out of the way, spilling the contents of the tray across the floor, but not drawing any attention, surprisingly.

Being only fourteen, he hadn't reached his maximum height, and despite Remus being on the shorter side, when Sirius aimed a punch at his rib cage, it hit Harry squarely in the shoulder sending him crashing backwards into Remus. Upon experiencing his weight, little as it was, they both fell into the moved coffee table.

"Harry!"

Besides the initial pain in his shoulder, and the back of his head cracking against Remus's jaw, Remus's body had absorbed the rest of the shock.

"Remus!" he shouted in concern, rolling off him.

"Rem…?" Sirius asked in concern after pulling Harry to his feet and checking him over. But he was unconscious. "Enervate."

Remus groaned. Sirius extended a hand to help him up, but he ignored it, and climbed to his feet, swaying.

"Nice, Sirius." Remus growled.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Sirius asked him, ignoring Remus.

He nodded his head, stopping when he felt dizzy.

"Sirius, look… I don't think you should have Harry in your custody." Remus said when his head had stopped spinning.

Harry had almost given up hope of ever seeing – let alone living - with Sirius again.

"What do you suppose we do then, Remus? Should we dump him in an orphanage?" He backed up into the couch with fear, feeling himself going numb.

"You- you wouldn't do that, would you?"

Remus turned to him with compassion. "No! No, of course not, Harry."

Sirius gave him an apologetic smile.

"Look… I don't see what the big problem is! Sirius says he's going to quit." He told them, not missing the look that both Sirius and Remus shared.

"You… are going to quit, right? You said you were!" he said, automatically let down.

Remus rubbed the back of his neck, and Sirius lowered his eyes and looked at the ground. "Harry… do you know how hard it is to quit an addiction?" Remus asked him.

"Well… my uncle used to smoke… and he was really angry for like… two weeks following that…"

"Drinking is, like, ten times harder than that." Sirius tried to explain.

Harry looked at the ground, angry with himself for having to put Sirius through that.

"Maybe I should go back to the Dursleys." He announced in his smallest voice, as if he didn't want to be heard.

Sirius sighed. "Harry, get this through your head. I don't care what happens! You're not going back to number 4 privet drive, okay? You're not going back there!"

He almost breathed in relief.

There was silence, until that relief turned back into bubbling fear as he realized he wasn't safe yet.

"Then… what are we going to do?"

"Remus… would it be asking too much of you to… stay with us for a month until I'm past this? Maybe then… Harry will be safe with me. If I can't do it… than I fully resolve to do whatever I need to get Harry away from me. Will you do it for me, Remus?"

"What about the full moon?"

"Remus…" Harry snickered. "We live right over there." He said pointing in their house's general direction. "We've got plenty of guest rooms. And Sirius's 'girlfriends' haven't shown up yet, so I don't think that will be a problem."

"I don't know why. I would think they would be knocking my door down by now with my ravishing good looks."

Remus and Harry pretended not to hear his comment. "Will you do it?"

Remus sighed. "Yeah, sure. It's not like I have a job or anything."

Moving in Remus wasn't hard as he was only there for a month, and he was lacking on the clothes front. Sirius resolved that he was taking him shopping 'one of these days' but Harry doubted it was going to happen.

By the third day without alcohol, Sirius was trying his hardest not to act like a nut job. However it wasn't working out exactly as planned.

Harry came down to breakfast the fourth day to find it all ready on the table. As much as it ticked him off that Remus had taken over all of the stress relieving jobs he had taken to doing, he had had a rough night. He had stopped having his violent nightmares that caused him to scream bloody murder, but now most of his sleep was taken up by sweaty uncomfortable dreams. As scared as they made him, he had stayed in his bed the entire night. By the time he had actually gotten back to sleep, Sirius had awoken him with a shout.

He had taken over waking the house up with violent nightmares as a mixture of horrible memories from Harry's pensive, and withdrawal that was plaguing his subconscious.

Remus was dealing with it the best he could, not being used to such circumstances.

Sirius came down, still in his dressing gown. "Coffee." He said almost angrily. Remus scowled at him from the kitchen at his impoliteness, but motioned for Harry to sit down while he got it.

"Harry. Is it really necessary for you to breathe so loudly?" he snapped. Harry raised his eyebrows. This was the worst he seen Sirius yet. Remus told him that it would last a few weeks, probably.

"God, Remus! Could you take any longer with that coffee? How hard is it to pour?"

Remus clenched his teeth with anger; his hand shook as though trying not to drop it in Sirius's lap.

"What the hell is up with the attitude? I just asked you for some friggin coffee!"

Harry gave him a look, telling him not to respond.

There was silence until: "You're still breathing loud, Harry."

Remus gave him a look, ordering him to keep his mouth shut, though he wouldn't have spoken anyway. "What was up with the look, Remus? What? Am I not in a good enough mood for you? Do you have a problem?"

Remus kept the annoyance out of his expression as he shook his head.

"What about you, Harry? Do you have a problem with the way I'm acting?"

"No."

"Good."

"So, what did you want to do today?" he asked, as if he had just had a mood swing.

He and Remus exchanged looked. "Uh… did you want to do anything in particular?" Remus asked him.

"We could go to Diagon alley."

"Sirius… are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Why!? What, you don't think I can handle it? There's nothing wrong with me!"

Harry was worried that this was how Sirius would be acting for the next month, but realized that it was a much better alternative than being beaten every night.

"No. Uh…" he saw Remus struggling to come up with an excuse.

"Well… you know, London is supposed to get two inches of rain today, and… it's not supposed to stop for the next week. I read it in the paper."

"HA! You're lying! You don't read the paper!"

"What he means is that I told him that I read it in the paper." He held it up as proof. They had both seen him reading it every morning that week.

Sirius looked at them suspiciously. "Let me see that."

They eyed each other nervously as he scanned through it. He put it down, looking disappointed. "Fine. But next week, we're definitely going!"

He disappeared to the living room as they scrambled, looking through the paper.

They gave each other incredulous looks "Thank God we live in Britain."

AN: Oh, God, where do the apologies begin? First, I would like to blame Johnny, my computer, for getting all screwed up. Secondly, I would like to blame myself (hear that, May? Myself!) For getting too involved in other things before my computer was broken. It was a stupid mistake, and I hope to update as again as soon as possible. I am so so sorry, everyone.


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